


When Hell's Kitchen Freezes Over

by gelishan



Series: When Hell's Kitchen Freezes Over 'verse [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Television Watching, sensory issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27137135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelishan/pseuds/gelishan
Summary: They both know how they feel.  It's just never the right time.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt/Foggy/Star Trek
Series: When Hell's Kitchen Freezes Over 'verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019917
Comments: 36
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [lindentreeisle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainblue/pseuds/Lindentreeisle) for the beta and the encouragement.
> 
> I wanted to get the first chapter of this out today, because there will *never* be a better time to post Daredevil slash than a day that is both canonically (comic book) Matt Murdock's birthday and the day the Pope comes out in favor of civil unions. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT.

"To victory!" The plastic of the cheap solo cup buckles under the force of Foggy's clink.

Matt makes himself grin, the expression feeling stiff and overwide on his face. "To victory." It doesn't _feel_ like a victory, not yet. He came so close to losing his first-- his most important-- case and getting them both expelled. If Foggy hadn't noticed Professor York's handwriting was the same on the plagiarized paper as it was after his stroke…

There's a thud on his shoulder. "I can hear you overthinking things, Murdock. _Drink."_ Obediently, Matt lifts the cup and tips it back to his lips. It's almost too cold, with all the ice cubes Foggy had put in, but the warmth of Foggy's skin is seeping through his shirt, blanket-cozy.

"We made it." For all his bravado, Foggy's voice is shaking a little, too. He sets the cup down on his desk. "We aren't getting kicked out, and we," he says emphatically, "are going to _celebrate._ Star Trek style."

Star Trek style. Now that's enough to provoke a _real_ smile. "I'd like that, Foggy." It's been months.

Foggy already has the DVD in his hands, cracking it open with a rubbery creak. "Let's see… no, I don't love the next episode, and today is a day for celebration, my friend!" The outlines of his fingers on the case taste in the air like salt and faintly (thankfully faintly) like artificial cheese dust. "Let's do Tapestry. It's one of my favorites, and you don't need to know anything else that's happened. Get your laptop."

Once they've set everything up, Foggy settles onto the bed next to Matt. He smells like the lingering asafoetida of fear-sweat and the polyester lining of the suit he'd worn to the hearing. He's still wearing the jacket, but it's loose, open. One of the threads unravels as it rubs against the shirt underneath.

He also just smells like Foggy.

Matt's skin prickles comfortably. The beeping of medical tricorders signals the start of the episode. He sinks into the animated tones of Foggy's narration.

"Ooh, right in the heart!" Foggy says.

Before this year, Matt had hated TV. It's one of few things that's genuinely difficult for him to access. The audio production muffles everything. There's no texture, no smell; no thrum of muscle fibers, no hissing of blood against arterial walls. Sometimes, he can make out silhouettes through the screen's heat changes, but mostly it feels like formless ripples. And the sparse audio description doesn't help.

But Foggy has a way of convincing him to try things he usually hates.

"I used to listen to them while I was falling asleep," Foggy had said. The DVD case had smelled faintly like some of Foggy's other childhood relics; old and new paper, sweat, cat dander. "No need to see what's going on. Most episodes are absolutely _delightful_ as radio plays. All you'll miss are the costumes and the stupid makeup, and that's what this guy," he had thumped his chest hard enough to be audible, Matt suspected for his benefit, "is for."

"Come on. We can make fun of the judicial system of the future together. And once we get to the later seasons, I bet you can _hear_ how hot Ensign Ro is."

Matt had wanted to share Foggy's childhood relics.

It had gone well for months. The dialogue _was_ surprisingly descriptive, and Foggy helped him experience the rest of it-- like the difference between the wrinkles on a Klingon ("picture a mountain range,") an Yridian ("a human raisin cut in half with a toothpick. But, like, a _moldy_ raisin,") and a Ferengi ("I don't know, Matt, you're just going to have to imagine two butts sewn together Frankenstein-style.")

Then they'd stopped, after the episode where Crusher rejected her alien lover for taking on a new, female host. Matt hadn't been sure they were going to move past the awkwardness of that post-episode discussion.

He really hadn't minded what Foggy had revealed about his sexuality-- had treasured it, even-- but that didn't mean Foggy _believed_ he didn't mind.

"I can't live out my days as that person," Picard booms, and Matt shakes off his fit of nostalgia. "That man is bereft of passion and imagination. That is not who I am."

Foggy was right about this episode, Matt thinks. Tapestry is exactly Matt's kind of story-- Picard confronting his past, reliving the parts of his life he regrets. It's a helpful reminder. For all Matt wishes he could correct his own past mistakes, he could just as easily turn them into new ones, worse ones.

He's focused enough on the unfolding story that he jumps when Foggy pauses the DVD.

"Something wrong, Fogs?"

If something is, it doesn't seem to be urgent. Foggy's heart rate is a little elevated, but his breathing is steady, if a little shallow.

"I just wanted to say… thanks for putting yourself out there to help me, Matt." The base of Matt's skull tingles with Foggy's sincerity. He has the sensation, again, of a blanket around his shoulders, warming him, even though Foggy hasn't moved. "Even if I had to save your ass."

"Anytime," Matt says. "I just wish I could have helped more."

"You helped plenty." Foggy squeezes his shoulder. "You stood by me. You risked everything because you believed in me. We could've been kicked out. It means a lot, and I'm _glad_ I could save your ass back."

He didn't _do_ anything. He'd fallen down on the job. Foggy was the one who saved the day.

But he's a Murdock. Murdocks always get back up.

"It was," he fumbles, "It was just the right thing to do."

"That's why we're a _team_ , Matt Murdock!" He elbows Matt in the side. "You stick up for the little guy. And when that fails, I swoop in with a daring argument during overtime to save the day. "

This playful back-and-forth, at least, he knows what to do with. "I'm sure those arguments will be handy next time we're mugged," he teases.

"Oh, muggings are the easiest part! You trip the muggers with your cane," he makes a _whoosh_ ing sound effect that Matt's always found endearing. "I thwart them with my great big tough muscles."

"And where, exactly, do you keep those big tough muscles?"

Matt can hear the wool-blend of Foggy's jacket crackle as he flexes. "I'm _loaded_ with guns," he says, and the laughter in his voice vibrates through Matt's chest. "You just can't hear them through my suit."

Matt smirks. "I don't think the suit is the issue."

"Objection! " Foggy protests. "Marci _swears_ that I have the body of Adonis and the cheekbones of… Adonis."

"And the confidence of Narcissus."

Foggy laughs, but he drums his fingers on his thigh, the way he does when he's thinking hard about something. Better the finger-drumming than the alternative. If Matt hadn't thrown away the rest of his cheese puffs, he'd be chewing one right now.

"Joking aside... you don't know what I look like, do you."

Oh no. Oh _no_ , Matt knows where this is going.

"You've never actually seen my face," Foggy continues.

"I haven't seen _anyone's_ face since I was nine." He knows it's wrong as soon as the words come out of his mouth. Reminding Foggy of his blindness isn't the right move here.

"You know what I mean! The face massage... thing. That you used to pick up the brunette chick last week. Why haven't you done that?"

Matt adjusts his glasses to hide the wince. He hasn't done it _because_ it's a pick-up move, because there's absolutely no need for him to touch someone's face besides the intimacy of it. He only makes the offer when he knows there's interest-- the salty-sweet smell of vanilla and musk, someone leaning just slightly further into his orbit. He always mentions it in confession. He knows he's setting back impressions of blind people by decades. But if he doesn't want to be alone forever, he has to use the advantages he has.

He really ought to explain.

He really...

"A lot of people object to having their faces massaged," his mouth says instead. "I didn't… I didn't want to impose."

"It's not an imposition," Foggy says immediately, as Matt knew he would. "You wouldn't be the first handsome duck to palpate this. I have a very palpable face."

Matt tucks his hand close to his waist and digs the nails in. What is he _doing_. This isn't right. This isn't encouraging a mutual attraction, it's... he doesn't even know if Foggy's still attracted to him, if the occasional elevated heart rates and temperatures are for him, or if he's just indulging in too much wishful thinking. And Foggy's _seeing_ someone.

Foggy's seeing someone. This might be the only thing he can have.

"Go ahead. Get fresh," Foggy says, oblivious to the guilty churn of Matt's stomach. "The honor of my cheekbones demands it."

More than anything, it's the sweet, guileless warmth in his tone that makes Matt cave.

He turns to face Foggy. "I'll make it as quick as possible," he says, and reaches out. He'll. He'll only do this for a moment, long enough to make Foggy think he's satisfied. Long enough to tuck these new memories into his heart, to pull out when the city feels sharp and cold. Not long enough to drive Foggy away.

He draws himself onto his knees. They sink into the memory foam of the mattress. Trying to telegraph his movements as much as possible, he rests one hand in the hollow of Foggy's jaw to steady him. The other hand, he raises to Foggy's forehead.

He runs the pads of his fingers lightly over a developing wrinkle there. Foggy's eyebrow scrunches at the contact.

Matt freezes in place. "Too much?"

"Scratchy." The puff of warm air tickles against his forehead. "I wasn't expecting the calluses."

"I can stop."

Foggy smiles, a faint shift under the skin of his palm. "No, I don't mind, it's just… unexpected. Please. Continue."

He finishes his exploration of Foggy's forehead and… it's a mistake. He's distracted, thinking about the best, least invasive approach that will convince Foggy he's been thoroughly explored. He's distracted by the textures of Foggy's leg tucked against Matt's knee. Instead of shaping Foggy's face with his hand, he absently tucks a stray wisp of hair behind his ear, runs his fingers through the strands.

And suddenly he's entirely present again, because Foggy's breath hitches. His temperature rises. His pulse beats rapid and light. This is...

"Huh, your hair's longer than mine," Matt cards his fingers through it more thoroughly. He has to see if he's reading this right. "Softer, too." He moves forward, so that the knee pressed against Foggy's leg wedges just slightly under it. Daringly, he scrapes his fingernails against Foggy's scalp, just hard enough for plausible deniability.

Foggy shifts on the bed, neither towards or away from him. His knees part, just slightly.

Matt's right. He's _right_.

It wasn't wishful thinking. Foggy _is_ still attracted to him.

His will to get this done quickly is crumbling. He can feel Foggy trembling.

It's for _him._

He wonders what Foggy will let him get away with.

"This part," he says, low, "can feel a little intrusive. I need you to _promise_ you'll tell me if you want me to stop."

He barely waits for a shaky 'okay' before trailing the index finger of the hand on Foggy's jaw upward to his mouth. Foggy's lips are chapped, the skin dragging and catching against his calluses, so he removes his finger quickly even though Foggy is breathing shallowly at the contact. Even though he wants to make Foggy _say_ things. Preferably, his name.

He can't even begin to pretend this is platonic anymore. He has to stop. _You shouldn't be doing this, you shouldn't, shouldn't_.

His hand brushes down the side of Foggy's neck. With effort, he restrains it from dipping under the edge of his lapel. "And now, to defend the honor of your cheekbones." He grazes his knuckles along Foggy's cheek, feather-light. Enjoys the heat of his embarrassment.

"What's... the verdict?" Foggy's voice is so unsteady. He's shivering.

It's time for a joke-- something to put this back on comfortable, even ground. _Consider your honor satisfied,_ he tries to say. _They're Adonis-like as advertised._ What comes out instead is:

"You're Adonis-like as advertised." Rough, ragged, too sincere. This would have been easier for him if Foggy _had_ chiseled cheekbones. The harsh angles would have been a simple, straightforward path to travel. These subdued curves are making him lose focus, making him want to wander. Foggy's skin is so soft.

He wonders how it tastes.

Too late, he realizes his forefinger has been lingering at the corner of Foggy's mouth for the last… he can't tell how long. He can't even tell. And his other hand, which had been threading through Foggy's hair, is tangled there now.

Foggy smells _nothing_ like fear-sweat anymore.

" _Fuck_ ," Foggy says, exhaling sharp and hard like shrapnel. It dislodges Matt's hands.

Students are giggling down the hall. The floor is vibrating with bass, the air reeks of spilled beer. But all he can hear is Foggy's heartbeat. "Um. I didn't mean."

"Jesus, Matt." It comes out breathy, and Foggy pinches the bridge of his nose. "No blasphemy intended."

"None… none taken." The reality of what he's just done is crashing in Matt's blood. He's been covetous. He's betrayed Foggy's trust. He should have explained the face touching, he _knew_ he should have.

He can't, now. Not ever.

"When I said get fresh," Foggy says, "I did _not_ expect you to level that up to _lemon Pine-Sol._ "

"I'm sorry." His concentration is slipping, the edges of the room are distorting around him. He should have known this was going to happen the moment he made the not-decision to touch Foggy. That Foggy wasn't going to like it, that this couldn't end well.

His fingers on Foggy's skin were a clearer message than a bracelet woven from ice cream wrappers.

Foggy's drumming on his thigh again. When he finally speaks, his voice is careful, tentative. "You don't necessarily need to be. It depends on what... that was."

Matt can't quite quantify his response to the words. It hovers somewhere between confusion, panic, and relief, a response to _too much_ he'd thought he trained himself out of years ago.

He doesn't deserve forgiveness for this, but he'd do anything to make amends.

(He wants to be able to say he'd do anything to take it back, but he knows he wouldn't. Another terrible decision to carry to confessional.)

Maybe Foggy will let him get away with this. Just once.

Foggy extends his index finger. Counts. "If it was an honest mistake? You've been plied with strong drink, my friend, no apology needed." He must be really rattled, Matt thinks through the pounding in his ears. He never makes purely visual gestures around Matt anymore.

"If it was intentional?" Foggy extends another finger. "You are _not_ smooth, buddy, but still no apology needed."

He drops the hand to his hip. "If this is you making fun of the bi guy, then yeah, you owe me an apology. But," he sighs, "since you've already done that, we can move on."

It's the answer that risks the least, reveals the least of himself, but he can't. He can't bear to let Foggy think he'd make light of the secrets Foggy's entrusted him with. They're precious. "I'm not..." His nerves are jangling. Things all over the building are crowding into his perception. The tap dripping in room 14B. Pancakes, peanut butter, and maple syrup in the courtyard. Shelly yelling at her girlfriend.

"Not making fun? Not moving on?"

Matt presses his hand to his cheek, digs a fingernail in behind his ear as surreptitiously as he can. The stinging pain drowns out some of the cacophony. He'd cover his ears, but he doesn't want Foggy to think he isn't paying attention.

"Talk to me, Matt. You're not made of glass, right? I'm not either."

Matt breathes. _Focus_ , he hears Stick say. _Observe._ His throat is clenched; he lets it clench, observes as it relaxes. The muscles behind his armpits itch, then subside. He rolls his shoulders back, noting the exact places they crunch. The building noises are getting more distant.

He watches himself breathe.

When he finally has some control back, he focuses back on Foggy, who's still waiting, patient and faithful. He tries to say something. He's still having trouble finding words.

"All right, Mr. Talkative, I'll start." Foggy bites off a sigh, as though Matt were a wounded, skittish animal who might bolt at loud noises. He's not wrong.

Matt feels a headache coming on, along with the raw, wounded honesty that always accompanies this much sensory overload.

"What you said," Foggy's voice is coaxing. "Adonis-like. Was that meant to be funny."

It's not quite a question-- like Foggy already knows the answer to that part.

"Originally," Matt whispers.

"And now?"

He swallows. "I'm not sure."

He hasn't managed to modulate his tone. His volume is low, but he sounds fierce and harsh, like winding bandages around his hands before a fight.

Foggy sucks in several long, deep breaths. Matt doesn't breathe, feels his fingers flexing. "Could you... elaborate, please?"

He doesn't want to. He _really_ doesn't want to. This is why he avoids people in this state, when the after-echoes of his overstimulated nervous system force truth out of him.

But this is Foggy, who never asks for anything for himself. Foggy deserves anything he wants.

"It helps me to grab your arm, sometimes," he says, inadequately. "I've gotten around fine for years, but I like the way you narrate."

It's not an explanation. He knows it, Foggy knows it, and Foggy is going to let this silence stretch out until an explanation snaps it. "And I just like being near you," he says, choking on the words a little. "More than… More than I should."

It's the best he can manage.

Foggy stops drumming on his thigh, "I like it too." He sounds surprised, and faintly pleased.

The words resonate through the room, through Matt's bones. The air feels so heavy.

"So I'm not imagining it? This thing between us?" Foggy's voice wavers. "This… attraction-type thing?"

Attraction-type. He almost says, _no_ , _Foggy, you're not imagining anything._ Foggy's giving him another out-- a way to keep the rest of what he's feeling close and secret.

But Foggy's heartbeat... it's been thick and rapid through most of the conversation, but it speeds when he says _attraction_. Not just the way it does when he's being awkward, putting himself out there. The way it does when he's not being entirely truthful.

_Oh_ , he thinks again. Matt's not always the best with social cues, but he can extrapolate from this particular evidence.

"Matt?"

Foggy's trying to sound warm, encouraging, relaxed. His shoulders are rigid. Foggy is expecting to be humiliated.

Foggy thinks he's alone in this.

Matt reaches out. Touches Foggy on the shoulder, softly, wills it to relax along with his own. He can't stop his hand from shaking. He hopes Foggy won't mind.

"You can say romantic-type, Foggy," he says quietly.

Foggy's heart skips.

"I have... _so_ many questions."

"Go ahead, Fogs."

"You're Catholic."

Matt waits for something further, something to answer. The humming of his digital clock grates on the edges of his over-raw perception. "Not really a question, but I can safely say yes."

"You're okay with, you know, being not-straight?" Foggy's digging his fingers into the pillow behind him. The sound is scratchy and uncomfortable. "You are, right? I'm still not sure this isn't some wacky misunderstanding."

"Yes, Foggy. I don't agree with the Church on everything."

"You said that the last time we watched Star Trek," he says. "But it'd really help me to know the how and why of your disagreements, buddy." Another pillow squeeze, and this time, his voice cracks a little. "I'm... pretty confused right now."

It's probably an understatement. Foggy's shoulders haven't relaxed since the conversation began, despite Matt's efforts. And now he's pressing them back and down, the way he does when he's preparing counterevidence for debate club.

"You want the specific details? That might take a while."

"I've got nowhere to be."

Matt takes a deep breath. He can do this-- he's spent years organizing his thoughts on the subject. If all goes well, he's going into a career that's going to require persuasive speeches.

He takes another breath.

"The Church wants us to least harm the fewest innocent people," he says. "And we're supposed to be always open to children, so that we can introduce them to the person of Jesus and show them the beauty of the word of God."

He's not sure how this is coming out, but Foggy's leaning forward into his orbit, intent on his words. "Sometimes those things are in conflict. My experience tells me there are more troubled children in our world than there are parents willing to guide them to God's love."

"Experience. You mean the whole... orphanage thing?"

"Exactly." And the other children he can hear, crying from bruises and neglect, but Foggy doesn't need to know about them. There are some times Matt's grateful they live in student housing, that there are fewer children in their immediate vicinity than there would be anywhere else in the neighborhood.

"I think families that bear no children can be a balance-- a way of, of being open to the children who are already born, the children who are alone in this world. Disallowing homosexuality puts those children at risk." He sighs. "Thanks to ritual purity demands that became obsolete after Jesus said 'Nothing is unclean in itself.' "

And because he thinks Foggy might prefer this argument, he adds: "I think Thurgood Marshall agreed, too."

"Oh?" He was right-- Foggy sounds interested.

"In 1979, he had opinions about a case where a teacher was fired for being gay. History's not clear as to what those opinions were. We only know that Marshall dissented when the Supreme Court refused to review that case. But I like to imagine his opinions matched mine."

This might be helping to build his case, but it's all abstract, philosophical. He's not sure Foggy's going to believe him without something more concrete. "I looked into organizations that supported Catholics who don't object to homosexuality and found DignityUSA. I've been donating to them for years," he says. "Father Lantom doesn't approve."

Right again-- the tension in Foggy's shoulders finally, finally unwinds a little. "You've been thinking about this for a while, then."

He nods emphatically. "Since before it was relevant to my personal life." _Since before it would have benefited me in any way_.

"Which neatly brings me to my next question." Foggy rocks forward on the bed. "When _did_ it become relevant to your personal life? Because I'm kind of blindsided here, buddy, and you've known for _months_ I'd never judge you for your impure thoughts about Dwayne ‘The Rock' Johnson."

"That's when it became relevant," Matt says.

"…What?"

Foggy sounds _so_ surprised that Matt realizes he's accidentally given the wrong impression. "Months ago," he says hastily. "That's when I knew I. I liked."

"Men," Foggy finishes.

It wasn't a question, but Matt adjusts his glasses again. And again. "You," he corrects reluctantly. "It never came up before you."

Foggy inhales like he's been stabbed. " _Wow._ " His cheeks are warmer than they've been all night, blood rushing to the surface in a quiet hiss. It's beautiful. Matt can't understand, will never understand why _he's_ evoking this kind of response.

"Um. Then... I guess I have one last question." His voice sounds tiny. "Why me? Because from everything I've seen, you like them smart and beautiful, and I may be one, but I'm pretty sure you got the implication when I said you'd open my life to a whole new caliber of women."

Of course it's only the last question that's about Foggy, about his worth. He always wants to make sure everyone else is okay before addressing his own difficulties. It makes it easier to say, "You're better than me."

"Matt."

He holds up a hand. "Another difference I have with the Church is their focus on deliberation. Sometimes, being deliberate doesn't help. You need to act fast." Unbidden, he thinks of the little girl he hears crying at night-- of all the calls to CPS that have gone _nowhere_. "Sometimes I act too fast, without thinking. I make mistakes. I hurt people. But you, you're constantly in motion without having to think. Taking practical action to improve lives. You just do the right thing. I… I admire that."

Foggy chews on his lip. "So it's not my wiles?"

Matt allows himself another actual smile. Foggy's finally feeling relaxed enough to joke about this. "Those too."

The party down the hall is over, and a team of two is cleaning up after the mess. He listens to the bristles of the broom sweeping against the carpet, colliding with kernels of popcorn.

"What do we do now, Matt?" Foggy says into the quiet.

Matt closes his eyes. He thinks of Elektra's laugh, of the smells of wine and car fumes and electric wiring blending intoxicatingly on her clothes.

He's not sure this won't be taken as an insult, but…

"Elektra's straight," Matt says awkwardly. "At least, I think so. But she's willing to try pretty much anything. Maybe we could…?"

Foggy's heart rate skyrockets again. "Not… really what I was expecting to hear, buddy, but I'm flattered you'd go there for me." He folds his hands behind his neck, as if considering, which is more than Matt had expected. "I don't think that's gonna work, though."

Of course not. He doesn't know what he was thinking. "Marci's not…?"

"Oh, no, she is." Foggy shakes his head emphatically. "How did I not tell you this already, I've even told you about the hair-pulling thing--"

"--and thanks for that again." Again, Matt had meant it to come out as a joke. From Foggy's swift inhale, he knows he's failed, knows they're both thinking of the way his fingers had felt twisted into Foggy's hair.

He can hear _both_ their pulses speeding.

God, he _wants_.

"Anyway," Foggy sounds strained, "she definitely is, and your Greek girl's absolutely her type." He huffs out a rueful laugh. "But she's... not _my_ type."

"Oh." Matt's breath catches, just below his breastbone. He feels like he's swimming in molasses, sweet and soft.

He suddenly, fervently understands why Foggy said ‘wow' earlier.

"I mean," Foggy said, "I like my people nicer than that."

"Current company notwithstanding?"

"Matt."

He wants to say something. To push back against Foggy's too-generous compliment, or maybe joke about the rude commentary on his taste. But nothing seems right, either too light or too vulnerable.

"I… can't think of anything else," Foggy says, finally. "Marci's fine with 'extra-curricular fun,'" Foggy isn't making air quotes but Matt can practically hear them, "but she wouldn't want us to do anything separately." The end of his sentence trails upwards, like a question. Like he's not sure how this, of all things, is going to land. "She'd never risk the possibility of coming second." He kicks his legs over the side of the bed.

"Neither would Elektra," Matt says, feeling warm and brittle. "And I care about her. I care about her a lot."

"Yeah. And Marci's amazing," Foggy says. "Terrifying, I feel compelled to sing the Jaws theme every time she invites me over, but she's amazing."

Foggy scrunches his toes into the (old, disgusting) carpet. The silence that follows is companionable-- a late-night pub silence. Friends having run out of conversational topics, but still wanting to talk.

"Adonis-like as advertised?" Foggy pokes him in the side. "That's really what you went with?"

Matt feels his face heat. "Shut up."

Footsteps echo distantly on bathroom floor tile. There's a creak of metal. The tap in 14B finally, blessedly, stops dripping.

"This sucks." Foggy hugs his knees closer to his chest. Then he smiles, and his smile is as warm and steady as his heartbeat. "But it's kind of awesome."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to templewulf, [tacomuerte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacomuerte/pseuds/tacomuerte), and [lindentreeisle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainblue/pseuds/Lindentreeisle) for the beta.

It _is_ awesome. It's the headiest experience of his life, just knowing that two people as brilliant and hot as Matt and Marci can feel the same way he does. 

He should probably be stressed about it, but he's not. Things with Marci are fantastic. Nothing's happening with Matt (at least, not right now), but there's something relaxing about knowing what's been going on there too. Cards are all on the table, and Foggy's content with his hand. Plus, Star Trek nights are back. 

The one downside is that Marci and Matt already hadn't gotten along, and, well, now this fundraising dinner is awkward as hell.

He doesn't even know _why_ the interns got sent to a fundraising dinner.

"Matthew Murdock," Marci smiles with all her teeth as he approaches them, champagne glass in hand. "A pleasure, as always."

"Marci." He inclines his head. "I'm surprised you're still here."

"Oh, I care _deeply_ about the plight of," she taps her lips with her index finger, "endangered species?"

"Refugees," Matt says. "Though they are, in fact, in danger."

The strap of her fancy evening dress shifts as she shrugs. "I'm here to make Landman and Zack look good. And no one looks as good as we do. Isn't that right, Foggy Bear?" 

"Ah. Well." Matt smiles and adjusts his glasses _really obviously_ . "I'm afraid I wouldn't know."

The whole night goes like that.

He tries to cut through the tension exactly once. "Aw, don't fight over me, ladies and gents," he teases after a particularly rough exchange. "There's plenty of this to go around." 

Both of them just _look_ at him. Marci raises an eyebrow with just a dash of… you know, he's not exactly sure what that emotion is, let's put a pin in that. But she doesn't look happy. Matt, on the other hand, looks discomfited. Which, for him, means _stricken_ , like he's been caught with his hand, face, and entire torso in the cookie jar, and the cookies in the jar are for starving orphans with consumption who hail from the very orphanage that raised him from youth.

Foggy feels like a total asshole.

"Right," he says, waving his hands frantically, "It's not for us mortals to meddle in the affairs of the gods. I'll just… let you keep… I'm going to shut up now."

He does, by way of heading back to the bar and getting a second glass of champagne. Or third. Look, nobody can keep count after an evening this long.

* * *

When he fades back into consciousness, he's on a very scratchy decorative couch. It smells like old cats.

"...a sweetheart, though," Marci says, softly.

Let's see. His stomach feels sour, but not his mouth; as far as he can tell, he hasn't thrown anything up. Someone's put him on his side, which was thoughtful. His head hurts _so_ bad. But he's nice and warm, and there's something really, really soft on top of him.

"We agree on something, at least." Matt's voice sharpens. "He's awake."

Foggy has _no idea_ how Matt does that. He cracks one eye open. 

He's covered in a pile of fabric: Marci's pashmina, her silk-lined wool coat, the jacket Matt got from the thrift store that's worn soft through age.

Both Matt and Marci are smiling at him. They look soft too. Foggy kind of loses his mind with happiness and wiggles his toes in his shoes. 

"Next time go easier on the champagne." Marci touches his cheek, and Matt nods. "Let's get you home, Foggy Bear."

* * *

He's not sure anything is _resolved_ , exactly, but the three of them broker an uneasy peace. Joint custody, if you will. Matt gets Foggy on Tuesdays for team bar review and Picard Appreciation Hour. Marci gets date nights whenever else she wants, along with very bitey overnight visits. Foggy gets to spend time with himself the rest of the time.

It can't last, of course. He knows that. He's just not sure which of them is going to lose interest first, Matt or Marci.

Probably Marci, he decides. Matt's basically the most loyal person he's ever met, and he feels everything so intensely. Once, a couple at the table next to him had left without tipping. Matt had tipped their waitress triple, then lived on half-packets of ramen for the next two weeks because that was _not_ in his budget. 

Matt's never given up on anything he believed in in his life, and he's decided to believe in Foggy. 

Marci approaches things differently. She wants what she wants, and the moment she thinks someone isn't smart enough or dedicated enough to give it to her, she moves on. Eventually, he's going to be dismissed from her service.

So he waits.

And waits, and waits.

After months of passionate quarreling and the most _amazing_ angry sex, he realizes he's going to have to be the one to dismiss himself from her service, assuming he wants to keep all his appendages. Which… huh. He _really_ hadn't expected.

But he probably should have, all things considered. 

The restaurant he picks isn't Marci's favorite-- he'd never taint its memory that way. Also, he's a broke law student, he can't afford that kind of gesture. But he picks one she finds reliably tolerable, a coffee shop near campus with fancy French pastries, the kind carefully molded into domes, hit with a brulee torch, and sprinkled artistically with gold nonpareils. 

For once, he gets the table early. He's been nervously clutching his coffee cup for the last half hour. When Marci arrives and sees him already there, she looks momentarily surprised. And _completely_ stunning, she's absolutely going to win this breakup. 

"You're buying me four of the strawberry ones," she says the moment she arrives at the table. "Considering why you dragged me here, you're lucky I'm not asking for the whole case."

"Yeah," he says, because of course she already knows. She's always been smarter than him. "You can have as many as you want for our last big hurrah." 

She doesn't pretend to misunderstand. "So what is it?" she says dryly. "You and Murdock finally figure out your wild sexual chemistry?"

Oh _shit._ It was that obvious? To Marci? He's an asshole _again_.

When he takes a little bit too long to answer, he sees her eyes widen, then narrow.

"It was nothing like that!" He says hastily. "I would _never_ do that to you." She looks a little mollified, but skeptical, which… stings, if he's honest. But he also kinda deserves it for not bringing this up earlier.

"He did the face-groping thing with me a few months back, and things got tense," he says. "We talked about it, and I told him I wasn't going to let it get in the way of things with you. Things haven't been okay with me and you, but that's not why. You know it's not."

She leans back and sighs. "Landman and Zack."

"Exactly," he says. "I know you think I'm an idiot for turning it down. It's a good offer. It's a great offer, it's a ‘hyperventilating and getting a mortgage just so you can refinance it' offer. Is that a thing?"

"No," she says.

"Didn't think so." He gazes down at the tasteful formica tabletop. "I just hate it there. And you… don't." He sighs. "That's not the kind of life I want to build, and I don't want to keep you from the one you want."

"Right. You'd prefer to build that bedraggled little love nest of a practice with Matt."

He jerks his head up. "It's not like that--"

"I know." She sighs. Chews at her lip. "Just let me wallow for a minute, Foggy."

They sit awkwardly amongst the clattering of silverware and the hissing of espresso machines. 

Foggy folds his hand over hers, gently. "You deserve someone who isn't an idiot. And I'd like to be with someone who enables my idiocy. Whoever that might be." He smiles at her. "You know this isn't right."

She looks like she's contemplating the rudest possible way to say whatever she's going to say next.

"You know Murdock only touches people's faces when he's trying to hook up with them, right?"

"Nnnno, that's not-" Except everyone he can remember Matt doing it to was mysteriously hot, and Matt had collected almost all of their numbers. He'd thought it was just the Murdock charm, but… "Oh my God, he only does it to pick people up. I _am_ an idiot."

"You're an idiot," she agrees. "But at least you realize I'm smarter than you, so I guess we can be friends."

_Friends._ "Really? Already?" He says.

"It's not like this was a big deal or anything." She taps at the table with one of her beautiful, long, perfect, _sexy_ fingernails.

Yup, he's an idiot.

"I'd like that," he says, smiling.

It still hurts, a little, but it's the _best breakup ever_ . They've done it over coffee. They shook hands, and he actually believes Marci when she makes ‘let's be friends' noises. He is going to buy them both _literal gold stars_.

He does buy them literal gold stars, a whole sticker sheet full. He has to go to a Hallmark store to find one, but Marci deserves it. 

She takes a while to open the door to her apartment. When he waves the sheet at her, she makes that weird face that's somewhere between a smile and a retch. Like someone around her is being affectionate and she's _deeply_ concerned about catching it. But she creaks the door wider. "Get the hell in here, Foggy Bear."

Once the door closes behind him, she starts to pull off her sweater. 

"What--" The bra she's got on underneath isn't one of her usual fancy lace things, just some plain fabric band that wouldn't look out of place at the gym. She still looks amazing.

"It's not a breakup if it doesn't go out with a bang," she says, beginning to work at the buckle of her belt. "You in?"

"Are you sure?"

"Offer's open for five more seconds," she calls over her shoulder.

He stumbles after her.

God, he's going to miss this.

It's just…

She's not Matt, is all.

* * *

He has several months to contemplate exactly how much of an idiot he is.

Because, well, he's made his choice. He couldn't make a different choice, not with Matt _right there_ all the time with his aw-shucks faces and probable Summa Cum Laude. Not with the cozy way they fit together, pressed side by side, arguing about Darmok ("No one would build a language out of oblique metaphors, Foggy.") 

But it seems like Matt's made the opposite choice.

He almost didn't notice, it happened so gradually. But Matt's started to disappear in the evenings. He crawls back to their bedroom looking exhausted in a way Foggy's never seen, sometimes with weird bruises and scrapes Foggy does _not_ want to ask him about (yet). He seems… happy, content. Satisfaction is written all over his face.

‘Satisfied' is not in Matt's vocabulary. He's the worst perfectionist Foggy knows. He'll spend a week revising a paper until every word is a goddamned gleaming, polished, hypoallergenic miracle, and keep revising it until it's something that would make angels sing his praises. And then he'll spend the next two weeks talking through every line and why it isn't good enough.

Foggy's never seen Matt satisfied with anything. But Elektra can do that for him.

Foggy would never take that away.

* * *

"Matt," he says firmly to the mirror. "Matty. We need to talk."

He presses his forehead into his palm. "No way, I can't start there. It's just TV, Foggy. Be chill." He can practically _see_ the wary, guilty expression forming on Matt's face. 

He's going to try to do the Matt thing and not mention how much he's been missing their regularly scheduled nerd sessions. Matt's been in a good space, and he doesn't want to mess with that. But he's got this problem. When he lets an inkling of something personal slip, suddenly he's told the entire story. He is a _pathological_ storyteller.

And if Matt needs every word to be a diamond, then Foggy had better turn up the pressure.

"Hey dude," he says instead. "Just wanted to let you know you've been missed on Star Trek night, if you ever want to show up again. Ugh, no, that's passive aggressive." He clears his throat.

He's got to get this right.

"Matt," he says softly, "Star Trek night means a lot to me. We went through a lot to make it work, and I don't want to go backwards." He hesitates. "I don't… I don't want to change anything, even if I'm not with Marci anymore. I know you're happy right now. But it would help me deal with what's _not_ happening if you could make it a part of your schedule, just sometimes. No no no, too needy, _way_ too needy, _fuck_!" He sighs and wipes his hand across his forehead.

He can't ask for any of this.

* * *

And the few times Matt shows up, it's _hard_. 

He wants to be respectful. It was just a lot easier to keep his focus on respectful boundaries when he'd had Marci. And Matt keeps. On. Touching him.

Not just usual Matt-is-tactile touches. Relationship touches. He rests his palm on Foggy's shoulder blade. Drapes his arm casually around Foggy's waist while they make fun of LaForge's creepy romantic incompetence. There's nothing as straight-up _pornographic_ as the time Matt put his hands all over his mouth and yanked on his hair, but it's driving Foggy crazy anyway.

But it's fine. They can be bros who lovingly stroke each other's faces for all Foggy cares. Foggy is _fine_ with that.

He just hopes Elektra doesn't mind how many of those afternoons end up with his head on Matt's shoulder. He doesn't think Matt would let it happen if she minded. 

One day he actually falls asleep there, during another of his least favorite episodes (‘The Outcast.' He's glad it put him to sleep.) 

He wakes up not on Matt's shoulder anymore, which he appreciates. He was going to have the worst stiff neck. Instead, he's comfily tucked into… Matt's lap?

And Matt is running his hands through his hair. Which is shorter, now, since he's an adult. (And no one wants to pull on it anymore.) 

It should be weird, creepy, and intrusive.

He doesn't ever want to move.

But Matt has his bat radar for knowing when Foggy's awake. Before Foggy can speak, Matt's hands are starting to retreat.

"It's fine, Matt," he interrupts, hoarsely. "I don't mind."

_Please don't stop._

Matt's hands hesitate, then pause. Then he resumes, but it's slower, more careful. More deliberate. Foggy squirms, just a little, because the idea of Matt Murdock _thinking_ so hard about how to touch him is just…

It's a lot.

Matt leans over. His hair brushes Foggy's face. "I know I haven't been very accessible lately," he says, voice rough in Foggy's ear, "between law school and uh, my social life." Foggy tries unsuccessfully not to shiver. "But I'd like to be." 

Foggy wants _all_ of him to be accessible. 

"Yeah?" he says, and immediately wants to take it back. Foggy's not sure how he managed to deliver a single syllable like a mooning teenager. 

Matt's hands pause again.

"Foggy, I…" Foggy's holding his breath. "Could we reschedule our study and Star Trek date to afternoons?" he continues after a moment's hesitation. His voice is a little funny. "My evenings are giving me some trouble."

Oh. Not quite what he most wanted, and Foggy is going to ignore the way his heart clenches at the word "date," but good. He exhales. "If rescheduling means you showing up more regularly? Definitely." Oops. That came out passive-aggressive instead of friendly-like. 

He opens his eyes to that wounded look he was trying to avoid. "I'm… I'm sorry, Fogs."

He _knew_ he should have practiced this more. "Don't apologize," Foggy pokes him in the nose, which, again, is a relationship touch, but he's _on Matt's lap._ He can't be blamed _._ "I'm glad you asked." He is. He's really, really, really… that is too many reallys to be healthy. "It means a lot to me that you want to show up. It's our special thing, you know?"

"I do," Matt says. 

Foggy burrows a little further into his lap, into the smell of him, and lets himself pretend.

* * *

So Star Trek nights become days, and their previous evening engagement becomes the occasional pub night at Josie's.

And drinks at Josie's always turn into more drinks, if only to drown out the taste of the first drinks.

"Yeah, say that in Punjabi," Matt laughs. 

Foggy actually _hadn't_ been terrible at Punjabi, thank you very much, but apparently, that's not the case after two… three… _so many_ drinks.

"God! Shut up! Kiss my ass." They've managed to stumble back to campus. Foggy is very focused on not pitching over on the sidewalk.

"You can't speak--"

"No! No, no, no, no." Foggy shakes his head vigorously, and the courtyard swims around him. "Are you trying to tell me that you didn't take Spanish to snuggle up to what's-her-name…"

He's not supposed to talk about Elektra. Supposed to be Matt-like. Or something. He can't quite remember.

"What? The Greek girl?" Matt laughs. "Well, surely I would take Greek?"

"No, because she was taking Spanish," Foggy tries to punch him in the shoulder and misses. "She already spoke Greek. Whatever happened to her? She was smokin'."

Because it's weird, it _is_ , that Matt has kept her so thoroughly out of their lives. He knows things are awkward, and that Marci and Matt had bickered for months when he tried to stay close with them both, and...

Wait, maybe… maybe he had… what was he thinking again?

Matt says, "Man, it didn't work out." 

Oh right, Elektra.

Wait, _what_?

Matt sounds casual. When he tosses something major out that casually, it's anything but.

_Obviously_ it's anything but. 

"When does it ever work out with you, buddy?" he says, feeling a weird mix of sympathetic and giddy. "How can I help you? What are you looking for, my young Padawan?"

_Since when, and why didn't you tell me_ , he wants to say, head reeling. He tries to recall the last time he saw Matt coming back with bruises. It can't have been that long ago, so this is a recent thing.

"I don't know. I guess just someone I really like listening to." Matt says, looking a little forlorn. "And more Star Trek."

His heart wobbles. "There's always more Star Trek!" Foggy says firmly, willing the world to not wobble along with it. "With a live narrator, there's a new adventure every time." 

"You gonna… gonna narrate for me, Foggy?"

"As long as you want, buddy." He ruffles Matt's hair, and Matt ducks his head. He's got this tiny smile on his face that's just… adorable. Matt is adorable, he has no idea how he's held out this long.

He wants to kiss that smile off Matt's face. No, he wants to kiss Matt's face and he wants that smile to never go away.

But he'd miss if he aimed for it right now. 

They huddle into each other on the steps. He'll bring it up after graduation, when they're sober. It's going to be a new beginning.

* * *

Except that new beginning turns out to be an endless stream of...

Of work, first of all. Union Allied, the murderer with the bowling ball, the Cardenas case. They get an amazing and beautiful new secretary out of it, but they're broke and stressed all the time.

But what's even more stressful is Matt's new way of blowing off steam. He shows up at bars with that smile, picks out whoever's… Foggy doesn't know, hottest, loneliest, whatever. And somehow by the end of the night he's got their number, with or without face touching. He leaves early. He comes back again looking bruised and satisfied. 

He and Matt still have their conspicuously tactile TV dates (on Saturday now, thanks to their work schedule). They're still breathtaking, and Foggy hasn't wanted anyone this much in his entire life. But he's resigned to having missed his shot. Because this is clear, right? This is clear. Matt and Elektra are over, and he's found what he's looking for elsewhere.

Foggy makes jokes about Hottie McBurnerphone, when really, what he wants is to _scream into his pillow_.

He still goes drinking with Matt, constantly, like a masochist. They're building a firm together, scratching out their dreams and ideals onto napkins (he's absolutely going to get that sign made). Somehow, he's put all his eggs in this one adorable basket. 

But that means his love life is pretty much ruined, because let's be real. Foggy talks a good game, but Matt has the charisma of a Corgi and the physique of a Chippendale dancer. With Matt next to him, _no one_ would pick him first. Which… is fine, really. He shouldn't be picked right now. His orchard is full of bugs and weeds.

Ugh.

Then someone _does_ pick him.

They're at a new Irish pub, pretty far from the office. Matt probably ran out of women at the usual bars, he thinks, a little bitterly. Not that Foggy's luck is any better here. Matt's over at the bar, charming a redheaded woman. The woman Foggy's talking to, Elise, keeps looking at the clock on the wall, even when he pulls out his best anecdotes.

"My mother wanted me to be a butcher. I could've had a good, honest living! Steady money. All-you-can-eat jamon iberico. But I said, 'No, Mom, I want to be a lawyer.' " He forces a smile. "More fool me."

"Mine wanted me to be a baker." Someone laughs from behind him. "We should really try to find a candlestick maker, complete the set."

He looks over his shoulder to see three women sitting at a booth. The one smiling at him has the most amazing hair he has ever seen, thick and dark and wavy and so shiny. He immediately wants to put his hands in it.

"Or," he grins, her smile is _infectious_ , "think about this, we could open a deli!"

She cocks her head. "We'd need a cheesemaker. And a gardener."

"Can't help you with the vegetables. But I'm cheesy enough for the both of us."

She laughs. The sound reminds him of Marci. But warmer, more accessible.

"Excuse me," he says politely to Lisa… Lucy... the woman he's sitting next to and gets up. "Hi," he says, extending a hand. "I'm Foggy."

"Saskia." She takes it. "My friends and I are celebrating passing the bar."

"Hey, congratulations! I'm an attorney myself, though I guess you already heard. What's your area of practice? 

"Civil defense, hopefully," she says. "And what brings you here?" 

He glances over at the bar. Matt's leaning forward, smiling shyly into the redhead's space. But he's tilting his head upwards, too, in that way he does when he's trying to focus.

Foggy wishes it weren't so endearing.

When Foggy looks back at Saskia, she's giving him the side-eye.

"Ex-roommate," Foggy says. "Current business partner. Don't let him fool you with his innocent blind man charm, he's a scoundrel. And don't let him touch your face. He only uses it to pick people up, and he is _mind-bogglingly_ successful."

"You sound like you speak from experience," she says, wryly.

"No. Nope." He pauses. "Okay, _yes_ , you caught me, but there's nothing happening there. Why do I always go for the smart ones," he laments.

"Hard to avoid in the legal field," she says.

"Unless you're just in it for the legal groupies." 

She lounges back in her seat. "Assuming that's not true of you, I guess I'll let you come sit with us."

"You're kinder than I would be," Foggy says. There isn't an empty seat at the booth, so he grabs a chair from the pile stacked up next to the display case and scoots it over. It's a little awkward, but it'll do. "Now let's please get me a beer so I can put something in my mouth besides my foot."

It goes far, far better than he could have expected. She's a bantering _machine_ , they talk shop, he does his level best to charm her friends (whose names are, it turns out, Janine and Brenda.) Once, he gets her to almost fall out of the booth with laughter, clutching his arm the whole time.

Afterwards, she says, "This has been fun, so I'll let you get to know me better. I'm trans." She says it breezily, but there's vulnerability there.

He respects that. "Cool. Cis, he/him if that matters to you." He shrugs. "I like people pretty much indiscriminately." And then he realizes that comes off as _rude as hell_ rather than _hey I'm queer too_ and he hastily adds, "Well, the awesome, pretty lawyers, anyway."

"Nice save. Hold on," she says, tapping out a rhythm on the screen. "I've got to send a text." 

Janine's phone buzzes. She looks at it and lets out a wolf whistle.

Foggy… is starting to feel tentatively hopeful about that text.

Saskia leans over to him. "I let her know where to come looking for me if I don't text her in ten minutes." Her breath is hot in his ear. "Want to get out of here?"

He tingles. "Texting before asking? Presumptuous!"

"Am I wrong?"

He grins and takes her hand. "Not unless you want to be."

* * *

The alley is cold, but she's warm against him as she kisses him. Her hair is exactly as amazing as he'd thought it would be, he wants to keep his hands in here _forever_. 

And it turns out she's got sensitive ears. She makes these amazing little sighs every time he nips at them.

It's been such a long time.

And then Matt stumbles outside with the redhead, laughing. 

Saskia scrabbles upright and fumbles for something at her hip, looking far more startled than the _rude_ interruption warrants.

"Sorry, sorry," Matt says, holding up his hands. He's got the mollifying voice on. "I don't mean to intrude, I'm really sorry." And he actually seems sorry. His body language is _gentle_ and _harmless_ in the way it is when he meets with traumatized clients.

"Not really a good time, buddy," Foggy says through clenched teeth.

"I know, sorry, we can find somewhere else, sorry." 

Here's the thing-- he knows how Matt acts when he's picking someone up, knows it intimately. This isn't it. Turned-on Matt is a ball of restless, coiled energy, like he's about to run a marathon. This Matt is calm and collected and trying too hard to seem drunk.

He's trying to run Saskia off. 

Saskia's just _looking_ at him. God help him, she's smart enough to know it.

For a moment, Foggy's not sure what's going to happen. Then Saskia straightens the hem of her shirt, which had come untucked. "It's fine," she says tiredly. "It's been about ten minutes, anyway."

It's been six minutes. Foggy had been waiting to make the seven minutes in heaven joke.

"I promise," he says, a little desperately, "there is _nothing_ I'd like more than to get back to what we were discussing. Let me at least get your number?"

She looks at Matt, then back at him.

"Maybe. I'll be inside," Saskia says. "You know where to find me."

* * *

  
  


The redhead doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the commotion. She’s still tugging at Matt's shirt. Understatedly, like she's waiting for Foggy to leave before they _really_ get back to it, but she doesn't look patient.

Foggy's not going anywhere. 

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, as sweetly as he can manage. "I'm going to need to borrow my friend for a minute."

By now she’s gotten two of the buttons open, enough to access the glaring white of his chest.

"Right now, Fogs?” A third button. “I'm, uh, a little busy--"

_"Right. Now._ " he grits out.

She flattens her hand under the lapel, glaring at Foggy by now.

"Cynthia," Matt says, gently, and withdraws her hands from his shirt. "I'm sorry. Why don't you go back inside?" 

She stares at him like she can’t believe this is happening. Unperturbed, he starts to redo the buttons. "I'll be there when I can," he says.

She makes a disgusted, frustrated noise deep in her throat. Foggy doesn't believe for a second she'll be happy to see Matt when he returns.

At least some good came out of this, he thinks, a little vindictively.

And then they're alone.

" _Explain,_ Matt."

"I really am sorry, Fogs, I didn't realize--"

" _Don't lie_ to me."

He can faintly hear people laughing inside the pub. It feels like they're laughing at him.

"She wasn't right for you." Matt's voice is barely audible over the ambient noise.

"Is--" He starts and stops the sentence a few times, because he doesn't want to believe this of his best friend. But he has to ask. "Is it because Saskia's--"

"She's what, Fogs?" Matt tilts his head. He seems, for once, genuinely confused.

_Good._ And Foggy is not going to be the sort of jerk who outs someone. "A lawyer? An NYU grad? I don't know why she didn't meet your exacting standards, Matthew. And I don't care. She was the first person who's been interested since _Marci_. " 

"That's not true." What's weird is that Matt sounds like he believes it. Like it's impossible that Foggy, of all people, could have a dry spell.

"Then by all means." Foggy folds his arms. " _Name one._ "

Matt hesitates. "There's, uh, Karen--"

"Do you know," Foggy says, conversationally, "Karen asked me to feel her face like I was a blind person? During our _first_ , and _only,_ date _?"_

Matt flinches.

"So please tell me." His hands are stinging from the cold. "What's this really about? And don't feed me some crap about knowing who's right for me."

Matt adjusts his glasses. He's starting to flush, bright, splotchy, ugly colors. Matt's not much of a blusher, Foggy only remembers seeing him do it... 

That night, three years ago.

The idea occurs to him slowly, a tattered shred of remaining optimism. He'd thought he was done with optimism. 

Going for as casual as possible, he says, "Is it because you still…?"

"Yeah," Matt's voice is quiet, small. Like a chastised child. "It's that. I. I do."

_What._

Foggy knows he ought to be elated. He throws up his hands instead. "Then why haven't you _done_ anything about it?" he yells. The sound reverberates harshly against the brick of the alley. "It's been _years_. I made it _pretty damn clear_ where I stood!"

"You didn't," Matt says, and makes his wounded duck face. "You said that even though you and Marci weren't together, you didn't want anything to change. I _heard_ you say it."

"I never said--"

"In front of the mirror," he says. "You were talking about our TV nights. I… I was nearby."

What--he flashes back to that marathon practice session. Replays what he said.

He rubs at his forehead. "That isn't what I meant, Matt. Did you even _listen_ ? I said _you_ were happy. I didn't want to get in the way!"

"You never asked," Matt fidgets. "If I was happy. Like you said, it's been years. I assumed you were over it."

"You assumed…? You don't assume about something like this. You _talk about it_. You talk about it like adults!" 

He knows that's not entirely fair. Obviously, he'd made assumptions of his own, assumptions that were wrong. But he didn't make out with a _train of hot women_ to confuse the issue. "And," he continues, "it's a stupid assumption from the evidence, Matt Murdock. People do not just 'get over it' with you!"

Matt shifts. "You'd be surprised."

"You forget I've been watching your love life for the last decade, Matt." He advances on Matt, who steps back a few paces. "I've been bushwhacked by the unsolicited pornographic emails your college acquaintances have sent _more than once_ ." He's right up in Matt's face now. "I've met the women bar-hopping _just in case they ran into you again_." 

He wants to yell at Matt some more, shove him, But that's not going to do any good, because it's not going to change anything. Not the past, not whatever reason Matt decided this won't work. Instead he sags, closing his eyes. 

"Why didn't you even try, Matt?" He feels crumpled, like a napkin, wadded up and thrown away. "I thought it was worth trying."

God, he _does_ sound like a mooning teenager. He's kind of disgusted with himself. 

"Foggy." There's a touch on his hand, gentle, tentative. He knows it's meant to be a gesture of reconciliation. That's not what he wants right now, and he makes a fist. The touch retreats. "Foggy, you _are._ It _was._ "

_Was_ , not _is_. "Then please explain this to me, Matt," he says. 

The bulbs over the door are bright and blinding through his eyelids. Matt begins to pace, the way he does when he's getting worked up to give one of his barnburners. At least Matt thinks he's worth the energy. "You deserve better," Matt says, finally, and comes to a stop. He's further from Foggy than he was. Foggy's a little tired of always knowing exactly where Matt Murdock is. "You've always deserved better."

He should have known this was another bullshit _martyrdom, low-self-worth_ thing. Jesus, this hurts _so_ _much_ and he only has himself to blame. He should have known better. He should have asked about this _years ago_ , he should have asked about it _every day_. 

Elektra had been all sharp edges. Matt Murdock would never let himself have something soft. Not without a fight.

He opens his eyes. Matt's about three feet away, silhouetted by the lights. He can't see much through the glare, but he can tell that Matt's wringing his hands. He squints. "You deserve someone who can be fully honest with you," Matt says, and he's smiling that rueful, self-deprecating smile that Foggy loves and hates in equal measure.

Enough. He steps forward into Matt's shadow. "But you still _want_ me, Matt?" he says. "Right?"

Matt makes an unintelligible noise. He presses his thumb into the bridge of his nose.

"That's not an answer, buddy. Yes or no."

Foggy's working so hard to keep his breathing even, his voice level and impassive. He is _not_ leading this witness. Not when the answer's this important.

"God forgive me," Matt says, finally, "Yes."

"Then let me," Foggy says, "decide what I goddamn deserve."

Matt looks startled, maybe alarmed. Maybe something else. He drops his hand from his face. "Foggy, you don't understand--"

Foggy kisses him. 

Matt tenses, and Foggy doesn't let up, digging his teeth into Matt's lower lip. 

He doesn't know what he'll do if Matt pushes him away.

_You'd better not, Matt_. 

And then finally, _finally_ , Matt's hands are in his hair again, after all these years, and he pulls, hard. Hard enough that Foggy would be gasping if he weren't so goddamned _angry_ . Instead, he grabs Matt's shoulders and _slams_ him against the wall of the pub. He's under no illusions, Matt could escape if he wanted, but Matt hisses and arches up into him instead. 

Matt's going to have scrapes on his elbows to match all the weird bruises and scrapes he's been coming home with for _three goddamn years._

"Fuck you, Murdock," he sucks a bite into his neck, "you fucking…." another bite, "asshole." He presses his whole body up against Matt's and kisses him again.

Matt tastes like whisky and cinnamon and anger and it's the sweetest thing Foggy's ever tasted.

_"Matt."_ To his horror, he can feel tears starting to rise to his eyes. He dashes them away furiously. He's not going to stop kissing Matt for an emotional breakdown on the happiest fucking day of his life. 

"Shhh." And now it's Matt touching his face, reaching up to wipe away Foggy's tears. He's touching Foggy gently, so gently, like he's a Fabergé egg that could crack at any moment.

Foggy grabs his hand. Matt looks uneasy, like he's not sure Foggy wanted Matt to touch him like that. Like it hasn't been _every dream_ he's had for the last _three years_.

He circles his hand around the wrist and pins it to the wall above Matt's head. Matt parts his lips, and chokes off something harsher as Foggy bites more of the past three years into his skin. 

Matt's hand slides warm under his shirt. Digs urgent scratches down the side of his torso. Begins to tug at his waistband.

Matt _freezes_ when Foggy pushes that last away. 

Foggy breathes hard and fast and _God_ , how he wants to soothe the look he sees on Matt right now. He keeps their bodies pressed close and cups Matt's stupid, handsome face. "We're not doing this here," he says. _Not for the first fucking time_ , and he's hurting and blindingly happy and furious and almost dizzy with it all. "You're coming home with me."

"Foggy," Matt tries weakly, but with conviction, "this isn't a good idea."

"I'm not arguing about this."

They wait forty-five minutes for a cab to arrive in the awkwardest silence of Foggy's life. A cab, because Matt _hates_ rideshare companies. Foggy has listened to so many rants about how they exploit gig workers and don't do background checks and hurt cabbies' livelihoods.

He's not going to screw this up before it begins. He can wait forty-five excruciating minutes for a cab.

  
  


* * *

Regaining consciousness the next morning is disorienting. But it's nice. 

Matt's sprawled awkwardly across Foggy, arm over his shoulder and leg across his stomach. On his bladder, to be more specific, which is _hugely_ uncomfortable. It still takes two to three minutes for Foggy to convince himself to pry himself from Murdock's clutches.

"Mmgh," says Matt, hugging him closer. His arms are sticky with sweat, and he's got a little bit of Einstein hair going on. 

"I need to pee, Matt." He's managed to scooch out from under the arm, but he's still trapped by the leg. Forget big spoons and little spoons, Matt is an _octopus_. 

Matt rouses fully at the sound of Foggy's voice. Now disentangled, Foggy braces himself for horrified realization. It never comes. Matt looks… wary, and guilty, but those are Matt expressions. He doesn't look upset.

He looks worn-out and satisfied.

Foggy's heart hurts in the _best_ way.

"So," Foggy says, cautiously. "That was weird."

_Not the best opener after a night of passion, Foggy._ He cringes and is about to add 'great, but weird' when Matt speaks.

"It was," his voice is still rough with sleep, "Not really, uh, the way I thought it would go down."

Foggy taps on his thigh with his index finger. A good start, that implies there was a way Matt had thought this would go down. But he has to make sure:

"Any regrets?"

Matt looks like he's going to cry, which is seriously alarming. But, thankfully, his next words are less so. "I could never regret... Being with you is unregrettable, Foggy. I'll remember this day for the rest of my life."

Now _Foggy's_ the one who's going to cry.

"Was that, uh, your usual approach to the bedroom?" he says, to cut the tension. Which is not actually a tension-cutter, but… he kind of suspects last night wasn't an anomaly, given the bruises he's seen over the years. 

Matt turns his head sideways. "...sometimes," he admits into his pillow, words almost inaudible through the goose down. "When everything gets to be too much. It's, uh, not something I'd usually introduce on the first date."

Foggy wants to say something like _Since when does Matt Murdock make it past the first date?_ , but he swallows the impulse. Both because he recognizes he's still being petty about the three years thing, and because he just… still doesn't want to jinx this.

"I think we're at least on our second date, Matt," he says instead. He strokes Matt's hair, trying not to squirm even though he still really needs to pee. "Maybe the one hundred and seventy eighth, if you count all our TV dates."

And Foggy realizes he hasn't said it yet _._ "I don't regret it either, Matt," he says quietly. "I'd do it all over again. Weird included."

Matt sighs. He extricates his head from his pillow. "You just deserve--"

"Enough," Foggy says, a little sharper than he intends, "with the deserve." He brushes his lips against Matt's, who shudders, just a little. "I'm here. I'm happy. And I'm hungry. We are going to eat breakfast and brag about our most recent sexual conquests like _men."_

There's a long pause.

"I could make pancakes," Matt offers tentatively.

"Nuh-uh, Murdock." Foggy smacks him on the shoulder, and Matt winces. Oops. Foggy's not used to doing that on bare skin or new bruises. "I've seen you in the kitchen. You are a _menace_ with a frying pan."

They regroup in the kitchen, where Foggy feeds him cold milk and Froot Loops as God intended. Matt makes a face, which Foggy _kisses._ He can _do_ that now. 

"Hey," he says, once he's come up for air, "I've got something for you. Though now I need to buy Karen a muffin."

Matt raises an eyebrow. 

"We were supposed to give it to you together in the office today," Foggy explains.

"I didn't realize threesomes were on the table."

"Says Mr. ‘Elektra will try just about anything.' " Matt grins at him unrepentantly. "Here," he says, and shoves the shiny, new, hot-off-the-presses Nelson and Murdock sign into Matt's hands. 

Matt runs his fingers over it.

"It's the dream!" Foggy says triumphantly. "It's just like the one I drew on the napkin that you, uh, couldn't see back when."

"It's a little small, isn't it?"

Foggy laughs. "I didn't hear you complaining earlier," he teases. 

He's so grateful Matt dragged him into their rinky dink law firm, and he says so. At the office, he might have given him a hug. Here, he can scoot his chair closer to Matt and graze his lips over his hair.

"Foggy," Matt says, after a long, contented while. "I'm. I'm sorry I haven't been honest with you. Please remember that."

"It's okay," Foggy says, fluffing his hair. "We got here somehow."

Matt doesn't respond.

* * *

Foggy doesn't understand why until later, when he finds Matt in a black mask, bleeding to death on his cement floor.

* * *

* * *

* * *

  
  


This is what Matt Murdock has chosen instead of him.

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to a small army of helpful people. [idlestories](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/idlestories/) for the beta, [Upupanyway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upupanyway/) for the fantastically helpful critique, [94BottlesOfSnapple](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/94BottlesOfSnapple/pseuds/94BottlesOfSnapple) for the typo fixes and encouragement, [tacomuerte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacomuerte/pseuds/tacomuerte) for the outline and anxiety help, and templewulf for the endless support, brainstorming, and humor.

He knocks at the apartment door. Knocks some more. Then he’s pounding on it, loud enough to resonate through the whole hallway. His fists are going to be bruised tomorrow, but that’s a problem for Tomorrow Foggy. Today Foggy has enough hurts to deal with.

Foggy’s not actually sure how he got here. Might have walked the whole way.

When Marci finally opens the door, he almost falls in.

“It’s three in the morning, Foggy!” She’s rubbing sleep from her eyes and she sounds pissed. Not ordinary Marci level pissed, really pissed. “I was about to get my can of pepper spray--”

“You down for a hookup, Marci?” he interrupts. His voice sounds wrong even to him. 

She shuts her mouth abruptly. Stares at him. He’s sure he’s not much to look at right now-- winded, exhausted, bloodshot eyes from all the manly crying. He can’t stop clenching and unclenching his fists. 

“I hope so, because I am _raring_ to go right now.” His body feels like a live wire. He’s overflowing with tension, it has to go somewhere, he _needs_ somewhere to put it. All his usual coping mechanisms are failing.

He’s got to bite, scratch, hit something. But not like Matt. Nothing like Matt.

God, Matt.

If Marci’s not single, this will be spectacularly embarrassing, but he cannot possibly feel worse than he does right now.

“Tell me you’re down.” He tries for firm, commanding, because that’s what Marci’s into-- boys and girls it’s a challenge to wrestle down. But his voice shakes. _“Please.”_

She, on the other hand, is in complete command despite her ruined sleep schedule. “Whatever, Foggy Bear, fine,” she yawns, starting to undo the tie of her robe. “But you’re not going easy on me again.” 

There’s an expression on her face that doesn’t quite fit. A softness. He thinks she might be worried about him. But she _does_ look interested. And she’s definitely giving him permission-- orders-- to do the nasty stuff.

If Marci thinks that’s what he needs right now, he’ll listen. Because he doesn’t freaking know right now. 

Bile rises to his throat. “Done,” he says, bitterly. “And we’re not talking about it. ” 

Her fingernails are sharp against his face. “Deal,” she says. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

See, Matt? Foggy can choose something else, too. Anything else.

> _“I didn't have a choice,” Matt says. “She found me in a dumpster, all right? Half dead.”_
> 
> _It’s a reasonable explanation, which means he’s leaving something out. Nothing about this situation is reasonable. “You’ve never told anyone else?”_
> 
> _Matt hesitates. Hesitates long enough that he seems to realize there’s no plausible deniability left. “Not exactly.”_
> 
> _“What the hell does_ that _mean?”_

Their shirts are off. Foggy knows Marci’s skin should feel good against his, but it doesn’t. It feels like sand. And the temperatures are all wrong. Marci and Foggy usually counterbalance: he’s a boiler, she runs reptilian. But right now he’s flashing hot and cold like a broken neon sign. 

He thinks he bruises her arm as he squeezes it. His pants are rolled halfway down his ankles.

Marci laughs. “I’ll need more to work with than that, Foggy Bear. Pants all the way down.”

> _Matt’s pants are crusted to his legs with drying, sticky blood. Moving them is gonna hurt. Foggy tugs anyway. He’s got to see the extent of the damage, to know where to staunch the bleeding._
> 
> _Matt groans._

He ignores her. Her eyes narrow into slits. No one ignores Marci. She reaches down for his hair and yank-- 

He _wrenches_ her arm away from his head, because _no one is fucking allowed to touch his hair right now._ The high-pitched, throaty noise she makes probably carries through the whole building. 

Matt could probably hear it from Mars.

“Shit, Marce,” he says, panic rising, “I’m so sorry.”

“That wasn’t a _bad_ noise,” she says. “Get on this bed like you mean it, asshole.” 

> “ _You_ asshole,” _Foggy says._ “Elektra _knew about the senses? You told Elektra before you told me?”_
> 
> _That shouldn’t be important. He’s never had secrets from Matt, that should be the important part. But it’s not. He’s never_ wanted _to have secrets from Matt._
> 
> _Apparently the feeling wasn’t mutual._
> 
> _Matt squinches his eyes shut. “I didn’t tell her anything, Foggy. She had to throw a punch at me to find out.”_
> 
> _“She_ punched _you and you never mentioned it?”_
> 
> _Matt makes an abortive movement that’s not quite a shrug. He winces. “She missed.”_

For all he knows, Matt is listening in. His own personal peep show. 

Maybe he’s done it before. Probably, he knew all of Foggy’s hot buttons. He felt so exactly right. But that doesn’t explain how Foggy seemed to hit his buttons right back. Matt had responded to _everything_ Foggy did. He’d shivered and stopped breathing under the lightest, gentlest touches. He’d begged for firmer pressure, harder thuds. 

Something to center him, Matt had said. A focal point. Foggy had been so fucking _flattered_ that Matt wanted to center on _him_. But who knows if Matt had even wanted that. What the hell is even true about Matt Murdock.

Foggy needs to _stop_ this.

He drags angry red lines across Marci’s chest (God no, no more red). With his other hand, he fumbles in the nightstand for supplies. Everything’s where he remembers.

He tears open the packet. 

> _“I warned you against me.” Foggy can’t see him through the tears, but Matt’s voice is so quiet, so pained. “I told you this was a bad idea.”_
> 
> _“Yeah, well, you need a clearer goddamn warning label.” Foggy’s feet turn towards the door. “But I’m the idiot who took you at face value.”_
> 
> _“Foggy, wait, Foggy--”_

Marci graciously lets him sleep in her bed-- ‘for a job well done,’ she says, and actually pats him on the head. He doesn’t know what to say or think or feel. He barely even knows how to keep breathing.

He just does what she says, the next morning, and locks the door behind him when he leaves.

  
  


* * *

Karen finds him at the bar, three martinis in. Foggy mostly knows it’s her from the perfume. He wonders if that’s what it’s like for Matt all the time.

“You're a dick,” she greets him, sliding onto the closest barstool.

He can’t muster the energy to look up. “Hi yourself.”

She shifts on her stool. He thinks she’s put her hand on her hip. “I've been calling you all day.” 

He’s not exactly stellar company right now, but she tries. She talks him through the latest Fisk findings, even though he’s having trouble focusing through the waves of alcohol and memory. The fifth time he asks her to repeat herself, she actually crouches down so she’s in his field of view.

“What is going _on_ with you two?” She presses one hand to the floor to keep her balance. Bold move at Josie’s-- she’s probably going to get… hand gangrene, or ringworm. “Why weren't you at the office?”

He drags his cocktail glass in a restless circle. Karen was always going to be the hardest one to explain this to. “We're going through a rough patch,” he says. 

She frowns. “I found the Nelson and Murdock sign in the trash.”

“A _very_ rough patch.” 

She looks up at the glass he’s moving like it’s bothering her. He stills his hand. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head and frowns again, like she’s been interrupted in the middle of a thought. “Is this to do with the muffin?”

He blinks. The _muffin_? “What? No. What?” 

“From yesterday.” She’s hesitating in that Karen way-- she’s not sure she should be asking questions but she’s _dying_ to get the answers. “You two showed up forty minutes late. With an apology muffin.”

_That_ muffin. 

No, it still makes no sense. “Why would it?”

She straightens. Taps her pinky finger in the corner of her mouth. “Want another martini, Foggy?”

She’s nervous. Ordinarily, he’d pull out the stops to set her at ease. There’d be a joke about whether she should be encouraging him, some friendly banter, and then she could get to her point. But he’s not interested in coddling other people’s neuroses right now. “Spit out your theory, Karen.”

“Okay.” She presses her hand to the back of her neck. “You were sweet to think of my feelings, seeing as how it worked out,” she says, voice quieter. “But you could’ve _told_ me you liked Matt too. It would’ve been nice to braid each other’s hair and talk about boys.”

“ _What_?”

She touches his arm. “His shirt collar’s not tall enough to hide a neckful of hickeys, Foggy,” she says, gently. “And I’m not an idiot.”

He slams his hand on the bar top, hard enough to make his glass shake.

Of course. Of fucking _course_. Months of head trauma, gashes in his side, probably bullet wounds. _This_ is the one incriminating injury that Matt Murdock couldn’t hide.

“Can no one but him have secrets?” he yells.

Fuck, fuck, no, he hadn’t meant to say that, he’s as well as admitted it. He should have said ‘oh, I hadn’t noticed,’ or…

She would have figured it out anyway. 

“I just want you to be okay,” she says. “I want you to know you can _talk_ about it--”

“I _can’t_ ,” he snaps. “It’s personal, okay?” Breathes in, because Karen’s not the one he’s angry at. “It’s _personal.”_ He says, slightly lower.

Karen shrinks back. “Okay, it’s personal, I get it.” Her voice is brittle.

“Sorry,” he says, after a moment. For Matt, for yelling. He really tries to mean it.

“You don't apologize for an _apology muffin_ ,” she says, like she doesn’t know what he means. 

* * *

He and Matt avoid each other in the office. Matt gets the day shift. Foggy sneaks in late at night (he does not _creep,_ no matter what Karen says) and fills boxes with work and sentimental relics.

The first day is the worst. Foggy shows up in the evening instead of after midnight. Matt’s working extra late to take up Foggy’s slack.

Foggy is struggling with a box jammed with primo office supplies when he appears in the doorway.

He makes this _face_ that’s going to haunt Foggy’s nightmares, a grimace of disgust and actual honest-to-God pain. It’s there for less than a second, but Matt’s the most stoic dude he’s ever met. Seeing pain on him makes Foggy want to drop the box and hug him close until he never, ever looks like that again.

  
The disgust is weird. Matt reserves it for… in hindsight, for super-sense bombs. Like pickles. Matt can’t _stand_ pickles. When their favorite sandwich shop dares put a bread pickle on the side, he wrinkles up his nose and hands the tray to Foggy. He won’t touch anything on it until Foggy’s thrown the offending thing in the garbage. And he’d made that same face when Foggy tried one of Marci’s perfumes, what was it, vanilla something--

_\--oh._ He’s pretty sure Matt can hear his heart rate increase, because… that’s got to be it. Matt can probably smell Marci all over him.

He clutches the box close and lurches for the door. Thankfully, Matt steps out of the way. He keeps his eyes on the floor as he leaves… flees, he can admit it, flees. He doesn’t know how to handle Matt Murdock standing there like Foggy’s breaking his heart.

* * *

It’s not fair. If either of them deserves to be heartbroken right now, it’s Foggy. Foggy’s the one who got lied to. Who Matt made into an _accessory_. He’s forced to lie to people he cares about and break the law he’s spent years training to uphold. 

But he can’t just… let that expression be on Matt Murdock’s face without trying to figure it out. 

He can figure this out.

He gets out a notebook (a legal pad he recently stole from the office, okay, he’s feeling petty) and sets it out on the bar. A napkin would be more traditional, but Matt Murdock is too complicated to fit on a single piece of paper. Foggy will probably end up using the whole notebook.

And he… he can’t use a napkin. He can’t.

He shakes his head. He just needs to lay out all the evidence. Figure out what he’s feeling, figure out what’s justified. 

Figure out how Matt shared all that vulnerability with Foggy, all that tenderness, but couldn’t trust him with his identity. Figure out a Matt where the years of bruises aren’t from anything Foggy would consider _fun_ , but Matt might.

Fuck, Foggy’s crying again. 

He wipes his eyes purposefully and starts scribbling.

One, Matt is a brooding vigilante.

Two, Matt can hear his heartbeat from across a room.

Three, Matt can hear his _heartbeat_ from across a _room_. That one bears repeating.

When he gets down to point seventeen, he realizes he needs a spreadsheet.

* * *

Foggy's not used to reconciling. He's never learned how.

He _likes_ people. They're nice to him, he's nice back. But he’s not really close with anyone, which is fine. He’s a social butterfly, he’s got to stretch his wingspan. So on the occasions when people are less nice, he just… cuts them off. Usually with a snappy speech, he likes to sass, but sometimes he’ll just move his lunch break from 11:30 to noon to avoid them. There’s always someone new to make friends with.

But there’s only one Matt Murdock.

He's been a total dick, and it feels like Foggy will never stop being devastated. But this can’t be how Nelson and Murdock goes out. How this thing with Matt goes out, whatever it is. Was. 

He actually Googles ‘how do people reconcile.’ The top result tells him, ‘Reconciliation requires honesty. Whether you were the offender or the offended, prepare to hear things about yourself that you may not like.’

Honesty. No wonder this is so tough with Matt.

* * *

In the end, all he can do is try. So he girds his loins and prepares for battle, armed with his list. 

Matt’s not at the office, the library, or Josie’s. He is, however, at Fogwell’s, punching an old, rickety bag like he’s willing it to hit back.

He looks _awful._ With the glasses off, you can see deep black circles under his eyes, and he’s worried his lip raw. It could be punched raw, but Foggy doesn’t think so. He’s seen Matt hurt enough to guess which injuries are self-inflicted. 

“Are you okay, Matt?” Because he’s always a pushover for Matt, even when he wants to be pissed. He’s lasted about thirty seconds before crumbling in the face of, well, his face. “You don’t look…” He looks awful but he also always looks great. Foggy changes directions before he careens into a speed bump. “You haven’t been eating, have you.”

Matt’s stops punching the villainous bag. “I eat when Karen makes me.” He’s not even breathing hard. “Hi, Foggy.”

“Hi,” Foggy says, and falters, because he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say next. There’s nothing in his notebook about the right response to ‘hi.’

When Foggy doesn’t say anything more, Matt shakes off his hands. “Why are you here, Fogs?” He walks to the side of the ring and sits. He sounds as tired as he looks. 

Even without super senses, Foggy gets a whiff over the malodor of old sweat. Wow. Matt can’t have showered this week. He smells like feet, and… tuna salad and garlic pickles? 

_Pickles_ . Matt wouldn’t choose that lunch for any reason except… He rubs his eyes. God, that martyr’s even punishing himself through meal plans. What is Foggy going to _do_ with him?

“I had this whole list,” he says, brandishing the notebook. “Questions, demands, arguments.” He closes it with an exaggerated snap, sets it down carefully on the ring next to Matt. Then he sits next to him. Side by side, careful to leave distance between them. 

The punching bag is still swaying. It’s creaky and echoey in the empty gym. “I’m confused,” he says, “and I’m, I’m _damaged_.” He spreads his hands helplessly. “All I want to do is to talk to my best friend.” 

“Best friend?” Matt sounds surprised. “Still?” It’s good to know that, even with the senses, he can do something to surprise Matt. But his friendship being a surprise? Hurts.

“Always,” he says. That part he’s sure about. He doesn’t even know if he’s Matt Murdock’s best friend anymore. He doesn’t know if he was _ever_ Matt Murdock’s best friend. But Matt has been his, basically since the day they met.

The brick of the wall is faded and dull, and some of the stencils on it are peeling. “I’m not okay,” he says to the impassive wall. “We’re not okay. There’s nothing I want more than to find a way back to where we were.” He kicks his feet restlessly. “I don’t know if we can.”

“We can’t.” Matt sounds solemn and gentle, and like it’s cost him something to say it. Fair, it’s cost Foggy something to hear it. “But maybe we can find a way to move forward.” 

Matt shuffles a little closer. He’s only four inches away.

Foggy closes his eyes to try to block it out. What was between them was warm and rich. He’s felt so cold for weeks. But even if he wants to turn and close the distance, someone has to stop him. Matt probably wouldn’t.

He’s not sure what to make of this awful mash of emotions.

“Forward,” Foggy says, turning the word over in his mouth. He’s not sure how it fits. “Let’s try it.” He opens his eyes and the wall still looks exactly the same. Ugly and cold. “TV afternoon next Saturday?”

“I’ll be there,” Matt says, and he sounds resigned. 

* * *

He does show up. It’s a start.

In honor of their resolution to move forward, Foggy introduces them to a new Star Trek, DS9. Or at least that’s the excuse he gives. Really, he doesn’t want to think about TNG right now. It’s what got his heart into this mess.

DS9’s the next Star Trek chronologically. A lot of fellow dweebs have told him it’s their favorite. He never really got into it. Sisko has too much of Foggy’s temper for it to be a comfortable utopian fantasy. And he’s pretty sure Catholic Matt isn’t gonna love the whole Emissary of the Prophets thing.

They sit in separate desk chairs, six feet apart. Once, Matt tries to bring the chairs a little closer, so they’re sitting side by side. “No, Matt,” he says, quietly.

He raises both hands in apology. They don’t speak of it again.

Neither of them seems particularly happy with the show. They keep trying it anyway.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They’re trying and _failing_.

They meet at The Jolly Goat and walk the rest of the way to work together. That’s awkward. Half their day-to-day banter was centered around lady conquests. Neither of them have the taste for it now, and Foggy’s not comfortable talking about anything else. So they walk together in chilly silence.

When Foggy does manage to open his mouth and make words, they’re all lecturing words. Especially on the days Foggy catches Matt hiding a wound, which is almost once a week. How is he this bad at hiding his night job? How did Foggy _miss_ this until now?

He should quit needling Matt. He went to Fogwell’s trying to reconcile and they’re drifting further apart than ever. But it’s like picking at a scab. He _itches_ to make Matt understand what this has done to him. How it feels to constantly worry about Matt getting caught. To worry about them going to jail, losing the firm they’ve spent a decade dreaming of and sacrificing so much for.

The worst part, though, what keeps him needling Matt against his better angels, is that Matt just takes it. Matt _is_ a stubborn streak. He won’t accept anything short of his standards, whether that’s guilty clients or bread pickles.

But now he’ll accept Foggy yelling at him. He’ll nod and withdraw instead of digging his teeth and nails into arguments. Matt won’t be Matt with Foggy anymore. 

The unstoppable glacial melt of their friendship is the worst thing he’s ever felt. But it’s nothing to how he feels when Matt _doesn’t_ show up at the Jolly Goat.

That morning, Foggy waits fifteen minutes after Matt’s supposed to arrive. It wouldn’t be the first time Matt’s double life made him late. But as the minutes pass, he gets the queasy feeling he made a bad call. That every minute he’s spent waiting for Matt is a minute Matt’s lying alone in a pool of his own blood.

“We have a report of shots fired earlier on a rooftop up on 10th,” the TV announcer says.

He sprints. He’s not athletic, hasn’t run in years, but he runs up every staircase of every damn apartment complex on 10th. He _cries_ when he finds Matt alive on the roof of the sixteenth building.

He’s got no chance to fully get Matt out of the suit. The zippers are well hidden. He just props unmasked Matt against his shoulder and walks him the mile and a half home. It doesn’t matter anymore that they’re going to jail if anyone sees them. He’ll go to seven jails if it keeps Matt alive.

Waiting for Matt to revive is a study in panic. A master class. All he can _do_ is panic and wait. He tried to call Claire from Matt’s burner phone, but she didn’t pick up. He can’t blame her. And his first-aid kit holds a few band-aids and some burn ointment, not needles and IV bags. He’d take Matt to a hospital, that head wound looks _scary,_ but that would be the quickest way to end their firm, their friendship, and their time as free men.

To make it through the waiting, he digs out his notebook and starts writing furiously. He has to fix this. Matt’s his best friend, even if they’re not talking right now, and he’s almost died again. For the second time. And both times, Foggy didn’t even know about it. If Matt keeps cutting Foggy out of his life like this, it’ll _literally kill him._

Foggy can’t let that happen.

So he’s got to force his way back across Matt’s battle lines. And for that, he needs a plan of attack. By the time Matt’s woken up, pale and wan, he has one. 

He closes the notebook. “Let’s talk, Matt.”

  
  


* * *

Matt winces as he sits up, putting a hand to his head. “Can I get some aspirin first, Foggy?” he says.

“Sure you don't want an x-ray? Maybe a psych eval?” Foggy says, a little more sharply than he should. A lot more sharply. 

It’s impolite to do this when Matt has a head wound and probably a concussion. He might not even _remember_ this conversation. But the plan of attack was made and he’s charging forward.

“An aspirin's fine, buddy,” Matt says.

“You need more than an aspirin, Matt. You need a 12-step program.” He gets up and gets Matt an aspirin anyway. This conversation is not going to help his headache.

Matt swallows it and nods acceptingly. 

All right. Matt still won’t push back. That’s fine. He can set the ground rules more easily if Matt doesn’t argue. 

He takes a deep, bracing breath. “Here’s what’s gonna happen,” he says levelly. ”First, you tell me where you’re patrolling. In advance, so I can find you if you’re hurt. When you’re hurt. Or at least find your _corpse_.” 

He starts to pace restlessly. That wasn’t a great place to start, more needling. Plus, the idea of finding Matt’s body somewhere is sending hysterical nightmare fuel to his brain. But he thinks Matt gets the point, and even if he says things wrong, New Matt will never argue or correct him.

“Second,” he says, “I’m training in first aid. Or as an EMT. Or a field medic. Whatever Claire will hook me up with on the cheap. I’ll be her unpaid intern if that’s what it takes." The cement floor feels cold under his feet. "And third, when you’re wounded and can make it back, you come to me, always.”

“I can take care of my own injuries.” Matt’s voice is grim.

Foggy stops pacing in surprise. That’s the first time Matt’s disagreed with him, even passive-aggressively, since he’d left Matt’s apartment that day. 

“No, you can’t.” Foggy turns to face him directly. He’s got blood streaked over half his face, and his mouth is set in a line. “You have a truly Catholic pain tolerance. But try suturing your own back. Unless you’ve got an extra set of arms I don’t know about, not gonna happen. And if you get another head wound like this one?” He gestures. “Look at you, Matt. You’re not steady enough to put on your own band-aids.” 

“It’s fine, Foggy. I made a mistake. I’ll be more careful.” Another gasp of pain escapes him as he tries to push himself to a seated position.

“Bullshit you’ll be careful, Matt!” Foggy yells. “This is the second time I’ve cleaned you off the pavement!”

Matt sits there in pained, mutinous silence. 

Foggy walks over to the wall and leans against it. “Someone’s got to help you.” His voice cracks a little, but he crosses his arms. “I don’t know who else would put up with your crap long enough to. Claire didn’t.” 

“Claire _shouldn’t_ have,” Matt says sharply. It hurts that their relationship’s gotten to this point, but Foggy's fiercely exhilarated at the same time. Finally, _finally_ , he’s getting a real reaction out of Matt. “I put a target on her back. Brought criminals to her home. They took her to get to me. Is that what you want?”

“Sweet that you’re so considerate when you didn’t give Claire a choice,” he snaps.

“Claire dragged me to her apartment unconscious.” He pushes himself off the couch. “I didn’t get a veto. I’m not unconscious now.”

“Because I did what Claire did,” Foggy says, “and saved your ass.”

“How, exactly?” His voice is slipping into a low, raspy register Foggy doesn’t recognize. “By walking me to your apartment? Giving me an aspirin? You didn’t even wipe the blood off my face.”

Foggy detests that he’s got a point. “All right. I won’t make that mistake next time, okay?” he says. “I’ll follow you around with a wet-nap and a first-aid kit. I’ll crouch in the shadows during your fights. Whatever it takes for you to accept some goddamn backup.”

Matt barks out a laugh like it hurts. “You don’t believe in what I’m doing. Why the hell should I trust you to back me up?”

It’s so uncharacteristically _nasty_ of Matt that it takes Foggy’s breath away. In none of their arguments, _none_ of them, had Matt questioned his friendship. “Low blow, Murdock,” he says, voice shaking. “I’ve always been there for you.”

“Ha. You’ve dressed me down like a child ever since you learned I was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,” he says, still in that rasp. “You ran back to your ex the _instant_ you found out.”

That’s who Foggy’s talking to right now, he realizes with a start. Not Matt. Months of suppressed anger, swallowed arguments, and emotional wounds have coalesced into the Devil.

“That’s not fair.” Marci had been a dick move, and if he’d been thinking, he would’ve known it would hurt Matt. But Matt gave better than he got. Far better. “You _lied_ to me. For years, about _everything_.” His eyes are stinging. He’s not going to wipe them with Matt looking on. "I was shredded to pieces and I needed somewhere to put them _.”_

Another bitter laugh. “Somewhere to put your pieces. That’s what I was to you.”

He can feel both his hands balling into fists. “Fuck you, Matt! You know that’s not what I meant!” 

“What I know,” he growls, “is that you’re not comfortable with the world I live in. Who I am in that world.” The Devil shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, slides one leg behind him. He looks ready for a fight. 

Foggy punches the wall. “How _can_ I be if you won’t let me try?” he yells. “You lie to me, you hide everything from me, you won’t even talk to me, Matt! I don’t know who you _are_ in the world anymore!”

“Well, let me tell you, Fogs. Let me tell you a story.” The Devil stalks towards him, his movements uncannily fluid. “The day she left me, Elektra took me to a stranger’s house for a romantic evening.” His grin is feral. Foggy’s lizard brain is not exactly screaming, but it’s speaking loudly and urgently. “We broke their front door down, drank their very expensive champagne, shattered all their glassware. Then she brought me a special treat. The homeowner, tied up in a bow.”

“Jesus,” Foggy breathes.

He’s right up in Foggy’s face, a warped echo of that night in the alley centuries ago. To Foggy’s faint horror, his body’s responding exactly as it did then. “I still have dreams about what I did to his face, Foggy,” he whispers, and Foggy jerks back as he traces a line down Foggy’s own. “They’re not bad dreams.” His hands feel like claws. 

He straightens and steps back a few paces as Foggy tries to catch his breath. “That’s who I am,” he says, spreading his hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture. “How about it, Foggy? Is being my backup worth risking your life? _Is it_?”

He’s yelling now, another thing that Foggy’s never, ever heard Matt do. It shakes him out of his uncomfortable stupor and into a dawning realization.

“You don’t belong in my world,” the Devil says. “You never did.” 

That clinches it.

Matt’s trying to protect him from _this_ . Not just nebulous criminals out for his blood, not even _mostly_ nebulous criminals out for his blood. On some level, Matt really believes that he’s an irredeemable monster. That Foggy will see this and, rightly, run for the hills, out of his life forever.

That _Foggy_ will. 

That _idiot._

“Too fucking bad, Matt.” The Devil jerks in startlement as he steps forward. Apparently annoyance is enough to startle the Devil. He keeps walking, one step, two steps, until their hips are flush. He’s very glad he had a moment to recover. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. He wraps his arms around the Devil and hugs him close.

There’s a long, taut moment that vibrates like a string. And then it breaks, and Matt Murdock is shaking in Foggy’s arms. Foggy doesn’t let him go.

“Why, Foggy?” His voice is hoarse and strained. “Knowing everything, why do you still want to keep me safe?”

He tightens his grip. “I’m _pissed_ at you, Murdock,” he says into Matt’s hair, “but I _know_ you. You’re a good guy trying to help people.” He hopes Matt’s with it enough to do his heartbeat polygraph. “There was a reason for whatever you did to that man’s face, just like there was when you punched the guy who hurt his daughter.” 

Matt doesn’t say anything, just stands there and shakes. Foggy holds him for what feels like hours, rubbing gentle circles into his back, trying to ignore the resulting pang of wistfulness. 

Slowly, Matt’s shaking subsides, until Foggy finally feels safe releasing him from his grasp. He stumbles a little, like he’s forgotten how to stand on his feet without Foggy there to support him.

“Who was he?” Foggy keeps his voice gentle. He doesn’t want to startle Matt again, but this he wants to understand. “The homeowner.” 

Matt adjusts his glasses. “Roscoe Sweeney,” he says, voice heavy with self-loathing. “The man who killed my father.”

...Foggy has to take a moment. There’s the part where Matt’s father was _murdered_ , and there’s the part where Matt thinks _this_ is what makes him a monster. He wants to scream into a pillow again. 

When he’s finally recaptured his cool, he says, “How you reacted is _normal_ , Matt.”

“It’s not--”

“That situation was _messed up,”_ he says emphatically. “Which makes sense, it was orchestrated by the kind of asshole who throws a punch at a blind man.” Fucking Elektra. If Matt didn’t already have a complex when he met her, she gave him one. He’d thought it was just the Catholicism, but no wonder Matt treated every life he saved like it was penance for past wrongs.

“If someone made me choose between my ethics and hurting my father’s killer?” He shrugs helplessly. “Who knows what I’d pick. But I’d sure as hell have good dreams about punching him in the face.”

Matt makes his wounded duck face. “I didn’t choose between anything, Foggy,” he whispers, like it’s a secret. “I enjoyed hurting him. I loved it.” 

Like Foggy hadn't accused him of that exact thing during their first argument about vigilantism. “Ok,” he says lightly. “You hurt people. You love it. And apparently, you dabble in light property damage.” He elbows him in the side, affectionately and way too hard. “You also save lives. I know which one matters most to me.” 

Matt’s silent, which Foggy chooses to take as acquiescence. He’s exhausted from this conversation.

He drags himself over to the couch and flops down. After a moment, Matt comes to sit beside him. “You’re really not…?” His voice is soft. 

Foggy’s not quite sure how to complete the question, but he can guess. Angry. Hateful. Scared. “Nope,” he says. “I’ve had _years_ to get used to your violence fetish.”

He winces. Damn his inner pathological storyteller, he’d meant to say _months._ Months is when he found out about the Devil. Years is how long he’s watched Matt coming home bruised and happy. Years is a tale of miscommunications and pining, and he’s not sure how ready he is to tell it.

“Years?”

Of course Matt picked up on it.

He considers not answering, or misdirecting, or saying he doesn’t want to talk about it. But now that it’s come up, he’d rather Matt understand.

He drums at his thigh. “When did you and Elektra actually stop dating?” he says. 

It’s relevant to the story, but he also just wants to know. How wrong did he get things? How long did he misread Matt?

“Two and a half years ago,” Matt says, cautiously, like he’s not sure how the non-sequitur is going to attack him but he’s prepared to fend it off with both hands.

Foggy closes his eyes and makes himself breathe evenly. “Huh.” Barely three months after that conversation over Tapestry. He’d missed a year and a half.

His stomach aches.

“I’d thought you were dating until last year.” He blinks his eyes open and Matt looks wounded again, like... well, in light of the conversation, like he thinks Foggy saw him as capricious, violent, and uncaring until last year.

“Not what I meant.” He wipes his forehead tiredly. This is hard enough to get through without wading through Matt’s insecurities, but he’s making the attempt so he can siphon some of them off.

He lets his hand rest on the arm of the couch. ”I thought you were still dating because you kept coming back late with weird bruises. You had this _look_ on your face, Matt.” He’s picturing it now, even though Matt’s right in front of him. It’s burned itself into his retinas until he can see it when he blinks. “Like everything was perfect. Like you’d done something right for the world, by even your preposterous standards.”

He sees the exact moment that Matt gets it. 

God, he’s so _beautiful_.

“I said, Matt Murdock never thinks he’s done anything right,” he says, willing his voice to stay steady. “But he’s coming home from assignations with this girl and he’s glowing with self-assurance. I’d never take that away. Never.” 

His voice breaks on the last word. He’d tried so hard to give Matt the space and respectful distance to nurture that relationship, even though he was terrible at it. Even though, on his worst nights, he couldn’t stop wondering why Matt liked her better. It kills him that none of it was necessary, though it’s probably good he made the mistake. If he’s like this after one night with Matt, who knows what years would have done to him. He might never have recovered. 

“Listen to my heart for the next part, Matt,” he says, trying to settle his breathing back into a regular, even, not-stuck-in-the-past pattern. “I don’t want to have to convince you again.” Matt’s still gaping slightly, giving no indication that he’s heard. “You listening?”

Finally, Matt nods. The weight of him dips into the couch closer to Foggy, and then Foggy jumps at the pair of arms wrapping around Foggy’s waist. Painfully intimately around his waist.

Matt’s ear is a warm patch against Foggy’s chest, which means he can _definitely_ hear what Foggy’s heart is doing right now. “Yeah, Fogs,” he whispers. “I’m listening.” 

What the hell...?

He wants to push Matt back, say _not what I meant, buddy, you can listen just fine from over there._ This is bringing up too much that’s too raw for him right now.

But Matt’s clutching onto him like he’s a lifeline. On some level, Matt’s still convinced Foggy hates him. Foggy is _such_ a pushover for that face.

Foggy takes another breath. Wills his heart to slow down. Okay. This is okay. It’s not like the next part was gonna come off platonic anyway. 

“I get where the bruises and the self-assurance come from now. I still wouldn’t take them away.” He lets years of quiet admiration and daydreams flow into his voice. “You burn brighter than anyone.” Matt’s cheek twitches as he touches it. “Just stop adding wicks to your goddamn candles.”

Matt makes this hitching noise, like he’s trying not to cry, “Foggy.” The vibrations of his voice tangle in Foggy’s chest. “Thank you, Foggy.”

He pats him on the shoulder, awkwardly. “We good, Murdock?” he says. “You gonna let me help you?”

He inhales. Exhales. “Sure,” he says, and his voice is a promise. “Yeah.”

  
  


* * *

Things change between them. They try and succeed.

Bantering gets easier. Matt asks how his EMT training is going.

“Fine,” he says cheerfully. “I‘ve earned my black belt in hypodermic needle.”

“Is that… Is that how medicine works?”

“Guess I’ll need more EMT training to find out.”

He sits with Matt on the rooftop as he scans the city for crime, and scribbles on the map where he’s headed. On the best days, they get pizza when he comes back. They argue more, which wouldn’t be healthy for most people, but it's a return to normalcy that Foggy will never, ever take for granted again. 

But it’s not just that. There’s this tension between them again, the way Matt runs his thumb along the crook of Foggy’s arm as he leads. The way Foggy’s pulse speeds when it happens, and the way he accepts that Matt’s aware of it. He’s glad Matt’s aware of it. Even though the tension’s not going anywhere anymore, it’s good to have it back. It feels comforting.

They deserve some comfort right now.

When the next Saturday comes around, Foggy summons his courage. Because he thinks he’s ready for something else comforting he wants back too.

Once they’ve plopped down in their desk chairs, he takes a breath. “I don’t like the sound of DS9 today,” he says casually. “Let’s go back to the classics.”

He shouldn’t be so nervous. Like he’d said, it’s just TV, he needs to chill. But he feels better when Matt immediately perks up.

“Really? You’re sure?” He sounds a little breathless. Apparently Foggy’s not the only one taking their choice of TV too seriously.

“Really, Matt. And in honor of the company, let’s make it one I spared from your Catholic sensibilities.” He smirks. “And your taste sensibilities. Devil’s Due.”

“No,” Matt groans, leaning back over the chair.

Foggy crosses his arms, still grinning. “You will watch it and you will like it, Matt Murdock.”

Devil’s Due is a terrible cheesefest Foggy’s always loved. It’s about a woman conning a superstitious planet into believing that she’s the Devil. She keeps this smug, toothy grin on her face the whole episode.

If the show writers had known anything about the Devil, they’d know you have to _earn_ his smiles.

“I did not remember someone on this show had a costume tackier than Troi’s,” he says to Matt, earning a smile. “It’s basically just gauze and glitter. ...and now she’s wearing Troi _as_ a costume. Eugh, that’s uncomfortable.”

“Now she’s a refugee from an 80s hair metal band. He’s wearing a skintight red devil costume. Not a nice-looking one like yours, either.”

“Thank you kindly,” Matt says in his best metal voice.

She goes to court. The proceedings are extrajudicial even by Star Trek standards. By the middle of the scene, they’re laughing so hard Foggy has to re-narrate the dialogue.

“The advocate _will_ refrain from expressing personal affections for her opponent.” Foggy wheezes.

When the credits roll, Foggy leans back in his chair and sighs. He feels relaxed for the first time since they’d started this up again, months ago.

“Thanks, Matt.” he says. “I really needed that.”

Matt scoots his chair a little closer. This time, Foggy doesn’t say anything.

* * *

When Matt takes the Punisher down, they go out to celebrate.

Just the two of them. He’d invited Karen too, of course, she’s a good bro who deserves to celebrate the downfall of the city’s most notorious killer.

“Thanks,” she’d said, “but you two have fun. It’s miserable out. I’ve got a date with some arabica at St. Kilda.”

“You hipster,” he’d laughed. “Their pastries are great, though. I got your muffin there.”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” she’d said. “I’m kind of addicted.”

So they’re wrapping up at Josie’s alone, and Foggy’s glad about it. And guilty that he feels glad, he’s turning into Matt. He didn’t really _want_ Karen here. He’s still not allowed to tell Karen about Matt’s night shift, which they’re celebrating today, and he’s had enough lying by omission for the next fifty years.

“What’s it like, being an international man of mystery?” he teases.

He gets a wry smile in response. “International? I haven’t even gotten out to the Bronx.”

“Okay, fine. What’s it like being a Manhattan man of mystery?”

Matt tilts his head consideringly. “The pay is terrible, the benefits are worse, but I like my coworkers.” He grins at Foggy with a pointed, affectionate fondness. The kind that always throws him off-balance, which is probably why he says what he says next.

“Careful, you know HR doesn’t allow fraternizing in the workplace.” It comes out just this side of flirting. It’s at least flirtatious. They don’t really do that.

He holds his breath.

After a slightly-too-long pause, Matt smirks. “No promises.”

Foggy grins with more than a little relief. It’s okay. They can get past the awkward moments now.

“Seriously, Matt, congratulations,” he says. “You really helped the city. You picked a good fight.”

Matt nudges his glass. “I hate it sometimes,” he says, tone suddenly softer. “Picking fights. Never knowing if I picked the good, clean ones, or just the ones that challenged me.” He runs his fingers along the rim of the glass. “Never knowing if I fought hard enough.” 

“That’s what you have me for. To back you up!” He’d elbow Matt if he weren’t sitting across the table: he settles for kicking him in the shin. Nicely. “You did good, Matt. Promise.”

He lifts his tumbler. “To the good fights.”

Matt adjusts his glasses. Then again. Finally, he lifts his tumbler. “To the good fights.” He clinks it to Foggy’s. He looks thoughtful when he sets it back down. 

Foggy’s not sure what _that_ means.

* * *

It’s pouring outside. One of those thick rains that spreads over every surface and feels like it’s washing the world clean.

Which is nice, except he has to go out in it. “The one time I leave without an umbrella,” he grumbles, rummaging through his briefcase. All he’s got that could keep the rain off is today’s newspaper, which is actually sad. He wanted to frame it. Maybe Karen can scrounge up an extra copy.

“Headed to the station, Fogs?” Matt says.

“Unless you’ve got a spare transporter? Yeah.”

He’s got a bizarrely determined look on his face. “I’ll walk with you.” 

Matt’s stop is half a mile in the opposite direction. Weird, but he’s not going to turn down the chance to spend more time with Matt. “It’ll be more of a run than a walk,” he says cautiously.

The determined look softens into Matt’s easy, familiar smile. “Even better. I could use the practice.”

“Against me? Give me a handicap, man. I’m not exactly Dean Karnazes.”

Matt lifts an eyebrow when Foggy says the name. “Didn’t take you for a running buff.”

“You know how it is,” Foggy says breezily. “Those who can’t do, watch.”

Matt grins-- not one of his usual grins, but that wide, savage Devil grin splashed across the news. That smile _does_ things to Foggy. Things that Matt is perfectly aware of, the bastard. 

“Tell you what. I’ll parkour there across the rooftops.” he says, stretching his hands distractingly above his head. “See if I can beat your top speed.”

“You’re _on_ , Matt Murdock.” 

In the end, there’s no parkour. Just the two of them, ducking together under the newspaper, which he should definitely have kept for framing. It’s barely helping keep them dry. 

By the time they reach the station, Foggy’s heart is pounding, and his breath hurts in his lungs. Exerting himself in cold weather is _terrible_. “Well, this is me.” He leans heavily against the station entrance wall and fumbles one-handedly for his MetroCard. The damp is sinking into his bones.

He’s a little sad the afternoon is coming to an end, but it’s left him with a warm, contented feeling, like he’s been drinking hot cocoa all day instead of eel.

The newspaper has finally disintegrated. “Ha!” He’s got a grip on the hard edges of the card, and he tugs it out of his briefcase. Raindrops are soaking the shoulders of his jacket and streaming down his face. 

Matt reaches out as if distracted. Brushes one of the raindrops on his face upwards, achingly slowly, as if to return it to the sky. 

Foggy drops the card. His lungs still hurt, even though he’s stopped breathing.

“Matt?” His voice shakes.

The backs of Matt’s fingers are calloused. Less than his fingertips, but they still glide unevenly along his stubble. His head is tilted, like he’s listening for something.

“Did I miss my chance, Foggy?” Matt’s voice is soft, dreamlike. Regretful. “You gave me so many. It’s selfish to want another one.”

The rain keeps streaming down. He doesn’t move his hand. Foggy’s nerve endings are prickling in a way that’s soft and familiar. 

That explains the determined look.

His stomach clenches. He can’t tell whether it’s from excitement, fear, or nausea. Or shock. There’s a lot of shock.

There’s only one correct answer, of course. Matt Murdock is a bad idea. One that Foggy’s _had_ before. Foggy adores the man, but he’s so emotionally constipated Foggy has to force-feed him laxatives to get the truth out of him. And that death wish. Foggy’s been learning to sew up his wounds, but eventually, Matt’s going to succeed at tearing himself apart.

There are a million reasons there’s only one correct answer. A million _good_ reasons. But Matt’s touch is so familiar and so tender on Foggy’s skin. 

“Fuck, Matt,” he chokes. The wall is slippery against his hand. “Why are you asking _now_?”

For a few moments, there’s just the sound of passing footsteps and conversations. Then Matt tilts his head up in that heavy-focus way. 

“You asked why I didn’t even try.” His voice is always quiet, but right now it’s barely audible over the rain. “I said you deserved better.” He presses a knuckle to the bridge of his nose, and when he starts again, his voice is subdued. “That wasn’t the truth, Foggy. I couldn’t risk a no.”

Couldn’t risk a no. Matt risks his life, daily, gladly, and he couldn't risk a no.

Matt’s breath steams in the cold, heavy air. “I regret it,” he murmurs, the heat of it just reaching Foggy’s skin. “Not trying harder. Making you think you’re not worth the effort. You are.” He adjusts his glasses, in that gesture Foggy is coming to understand means ‘truth’. “Worth picking a fight for.” 

And then there’s just rain, footsteps, and a disintegrated newspaper.

Foggy wipes his eyes. And again. Goddammit.

It’s everything he didn’t know he needed to hear. Closure on those quiet, miserable nights of feeling like second choice. Vindication. Knowing, finally, that what happened between them _mattered_ to Matt, like it does to him. It _mattered_.

Matt stands there, awkwardly, not seeming to know whether to hug him close or give him space. Foggy’s not sure himself.

He tries to collect himself. Collect his thoughts. Because he needs to give Matt an answer, a clear one, and he can’t do that if he doesn’t focus.

Every other time, Foggy’s been the pursuer. The cornerer, really, Matt was cornered. Every other time, Matt did something unexpected, Foggy demanded an explanation, and the pressure made the truth tumble out into Foggy’s arms.

This time there’s no pressure. It’s just… Matt, asking. Matt Murdock _asking_ for something he wants. 

Matt Murdock, who’s still tilting his head up like he’s trying to focus. Matt Murdock, who knows Foggy finds that endearing. Matt Murdock, who’ll abide by whatever decision Foggy makes. Foggy knows he won’t ask again.

He was right. There’s only one correct answer.

“We’re not there yet,” he says. Matt nods and withdraws his hand, like that’s what he had expected. There’s a look of resignation on his face. "Quit the martyr face, Matt, that’s not a no.” 

He freezes. “Foggy?”

Foggy bends over to pick up the card, which is waterlogged by now, and slides it back into his pocket. He needs the moment to compose his thoughts. “Come on. Let’s take a cab to my place.” 

Matt’s disbelieving expression is one for the record books. “I’m not getting frisky, man, I'm _freezing_.” He wipes his hands on his slightly-less-drenched jacket. “And we don’t want to have this conversation in the mezzanine. It’s gonna take a while.” 

They pile into one of the cabs parked by the station. The rain and the city sounds are muffled through the roof. To him, anyway. He hopes they’re not too loud for Matt. 

“All right if I start?” he says in a low voice. One Matt should be able to hear, but the cabbie shouldn’t. “Or would you rather wait?”

“Go ahead.”

He hugs an arm close to his torso. Rests the other against his forehead. “What happened between us wrecked me, Matt,” he says to the floor mats. “You were already my best friend. When I took that leap...”

He takes in a shuddering breath. “I thought we’d set a foundation. Truth, justice, and avocados.” 

Love, he doesn’t say, because even if it’s true it’s not the right time to say it. 

“I thought we’d build our, our whole _lives_ on it together.” He has to force that part out. He’s never admitted it out loud before, how much more this was than a few years crushing on his best bud. “Then it fell out from under me.”

He stares out the window. Raindrops are pouring down the glass in thin, uneven rivulets. He’s never felt this vulnerable in his life, but the stakes are part of what Matt needs to understand. 

Matt inhales like something’s broken in him. “Foggy, I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head emphatically. “Not your fault,” he says, because it’s really not. “You didn’t promise anything. You just said you wanted me. It’s on me for reading more into it.”

There’s a warm, halting touch on his folded arm. “You read correctly,” Matt says urgently. “I wanted to, to build too.” Foggy’s eyes sting. He’d thought so, but thank God they’re on the same page.

“I’m glad.” he says. “ _So_ glad. But it’s still on me. I yelled at you for making assumptions. I said adults talk it out. Then I turned right around and assumed.” He can _feel_ Matt about to protest again. “Give me my share of the blame, Matt. You’ve doled out enough for yourself.”

Matt subsides, though it feels like he’s doing it under duress. They’re headed into a tunnel, and the lights inside form streaks in Foggy’s vision.

He hugs his arms closer. “I don’t know how to rebuild a foundation,” he admits. “Truth and trust are pretty shaky between us. I’m your patrol buddy now. Fantastic! You’re gonna let me patch you up once I’m trained. Also great. But… I know you, Matt. You’ll hide everything I don’t specifically ask for.”

A too-long silence tells Foggy he’s hit the mark. “I don’t like involving you in my fights,” Matt says reluctantly.

“Exactly the problem, Matt.” The lights are painful in his eyes. “Fighting is who you are. Who you’ve _always_ been. You don’t believe I accept that, or want to fight beside you.” He sighs. “How can our foundation be stable if you think you’ve got to hide for me to love you?” 

Damn. It slipped out anyway. He could probably have talked his way around it if his instant, heart-pounding anxiety hadn’t given him away.

He’s never been grateful for Matt’s truth sense before. But to his surprise, he is now. No more secrets.

He looks back over his shoulder at Matt. That kind of confession at least deserves a face-to-face.

Matt’s _goggling_ , an achievement with the glasses. A flattering, nerve-wracking achievement. “You… you…?”

The syllables are dripping with incredulity and hope. And they’re a question, when Matt can just use his magical lie detecting voodoo to know the answer.

Foggy feels his mouth quirk into a tired, affectionate smile. “I’m the sucker who’s spent three years stuck on Matt Murdock,” he says. “That doesn’t just go away, you stupid wounded mongoose, even if I don’t know what to _do_ about it.” 

Matt buries his face in his hands, like he doesn’t even know how to process this. He’s breathing deep and ragged. “Thought I was a duck,” he says weakly.

Foggy rests a hand on his arm to steady him. “Yeah, well, you’ve been demoted.”

They exit the tunnel into the renewed pounding of the raindrops. Matt’s breathing starts to even out.

When it finally feels safe to talk again, Foggy continues. “If you still want a romantic-type thing, Matt? Really want it?” He breathes out. “I can’t say no. I’d be smarter if I could, but I can’t. I can just say ‘not yet.’”

“How do we get to ‘yet’, Foggy?” Matt says into his hands. “When is it the right time?”

Isn’t that the million dollar question.

He squeezes Matt’s arm. “It’s not as far away as you think, Matt.” It’s terrifying and overwhelming and _amazing_ to admit it. “But I need you to do me a favor and be straight with me.” 

Matt shrugs his shoulders helplessly. “Tricky in our current romantic situation.” 

Foggy has this… _smorgasboard_ of emotions at that. _Our_ romantic situation.

“I’m serious, Matt,” he says, even though he knows it’s undercut by the giddiness and laughter in his voice. “I need to believe you’ll tell me if you’re in trouble. Or if you’ve got messy, complicated feelings. Please don’t hide the battles you pick anymore.”

Slowly, slowly, Matt peels his hands away from his face. “You do still deserve someone fully honest with you,” he says with that rueful smile.

He elbows him. “It’s not a deserve thing, Matt. No one’s entitled to your secrets. I just need your help if we’re getting to ‘yet.’”

The rain’s starting to let up. Drops are collecting on the window now, fattening until the force of gravity pulls them down.

“I don’t expect perfection.” Foggy drums his fingers on his thigh. “Sometimes you’ll slip up. Sometimes, telling me things will take a while. All I want is for you to try. Can you do that for me?”

Matt nods. “I can. I can try.”

They’re only a few blocks away from his apartment, now. He wishes the conversation had taken longer, that they had an excuse to stay like this.

Matt is the first to break the silence. “Foggy?”

“Yeah, Matt?”

He smiles, his mouth impossibly red even in the dense grey weather. “Mongooses are fast,” he says. “They can kill cobras. Sounds like more of an upgrade.”

He’s such an adorable, lovable dork. Foggy can’t help it: he sinks into another relationship touch and pokes his nose. “But ducks have always been my favorite,” he says.

Matt’s widening smile is blazingly bright.

They stay there, side by side, absorbing stale car air into their skin. It feels like hope, and a new beginning at last.


	4. From the Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Upupanyway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upupanyway/pseuds/Upupanyway) for the endlessly helpful nitpicks, and to [idlestories](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/idlestories/pseuds/idlestories) for the beta.

Their story starts four years ago at a crashed faculty party. Matt wanders around half-attentive for half the night. Then the room comes alive with the deliberate tones of colliding metal. 

Bracelets, he thinks. They ring like altar bells. He’s not sure what they’re made of. There are none of the undertones of nickel or copper. Not knowing is an intoxicating rarity.

Next he hears the song of a finger circling the rim of a glass. Clean, and pure, and _sharp_ , a focal point in the din. The perfect bait for him.

He’s already started towards the sounds when security intercepts him.

“He’s with me,” the woman says. Elektra. Her voice, too, is rich music.

Even before she’s dissected him from his wingtips up, lured him further into the wicked intensity he’d thought no one could understand, he’s already half in love.

She makes a lot of good guesses that day. She only guesses wrong once:

“The last thing you want is to spend the rest of the evening with that shaggy-haired friend of yours.”

* * *

His shaggy-haired friend is a muddle of noises. Cheesy sound effects. Clever, animated narratives. Raucous laughter. Bad 80’s pop through cheap headphones. (Matt keeps catching him singing along. It’s grating and off-key, and he teases Foggy about it. But he doesn’t want him to stop.) 

Nothing’s clear with Foggy. Matt loves the way each chaotic sound melts together to shape a larger picture. His sounds comfort Matt. They ground him in the physical world.

And right now, in that world, Foggy is explaining way too hard.

“It’s a utopia, set in space, that poses social and philosophical questions via tacky costumes--"

He grins. "I know what Star Trek is, Foggy."

* * *

He and Elektra constantly challenge for dominance, neither caring who comes out on top (in any sense). It’s the brightest time of his life. She absorbs all of his malice with wry happiness. 

Her sharpness injects life into him, vital and necessary. Every hit she can dodge is a thrill. Every shattered glass is joy. His hands around her throat are ecstasy.

* * *

In a moment of weakness, he puts his hands in Foggy’s hair instead and is surprised how much it grounds him. Foggy smells of triumph and fear and books and ink. And uncertainty, more than Matt is willing to let him have.

So he tells Foggy the truth. Having nowhere to hide is sharp, painful, and overwhelming, but the honesty centers him. And, if he’s truthful, hooks him. 

“You,” he says, more calmly than he feels. “It never came up before you.”

“Wow,” Foggy whispers.

* * *

He doesn’t have to choose between clarity and chaos when he goes out in the mask.

It’s the best of both. The edged focus of adrenaline, the moral truth of helping the innocent. Sinking his center of balance into the pavement, the grounding pain of fists on flesh. The beguiling muddle that makes up the city.

He doesn’t _want_ to choose.

So he doesn’t. He wears the mask. He absorbs Elektra’s pointed venom until she leaves him, because he isn’t strong enough to say no to his nature. Then he lets Foggy kiss him, because he isn’t strong enough to say no to his heart.

  
  


* * *

The evening has overwhelmed him. The cab ride home smelled of exhaust and artificial pine and stale cigarettes. And a familiar salty-sweet smell of musk, but mingled with spices, not vanilla. The smell of Foggy wanting him.

Now they’re on the bed, and Foggy’s so _beautiful._ The electrifying union of Foggy’s whimpers and heartbeat, the taste of his pulse points…

Matt’s losing control again. He needs a focal point. He can hear half the city right now, creaking of industrial metal and babbling with restaurants and sirens. So many sirens. 

He feels too much for Foggy. He needs the grounding pain of fists on flesh. 

It’s a problem. His fists aren’t something he brings to the bedroom, not since Elektra. Bad enough he gets personal satisfaction from protecting those who need him. He won’t encourage the Devil in other parts of his life, not anymore.

Especially not with Foggy. Foggy is too precious to introduce to his fists. Foggy deserves to never know them.

But there are other ways Matt can get what he needs. And he trusts Foggy.

“ _Harder_ , Foggy,” he says. Eggs him on. “I can take it.”

  
  


* * *

It’s his fault, everything between them.

When Foggy leaves, heated salt on his face and devastation written in his posture, it’s Matt’s fault. When he returns reeking of vanilla and musk and familiar perfume, that’s Matt’s fault too.

When their conversations break down, it’s his fault. He had so many chances to come clean. To soften what he does for the city. He took none of them.

Instead, he took advantage of Foggy and his trust. Treated him with tenderness without letting him give informed consent.

He deserves whatever bitter sniping Foggy wants to throw at him. He’s tough. He can accept his penance.

He prays a rosary for each time he wants to fight back.

* * *

When he gets back into his apartment, Matt breathes into his fists.

Foggy hadn’t…

Foggy hadn’t said no. Matt had been _certain_ he would. But instead, he talked to Matt with mixed-up wistfulness and said he wasn’t there _yet_. That there was a chance.

He fumbles for the bar glasses. Pours himself a shot of MacAllan, neat.

Foggy hadn’t said no. He hadn’t said no.

Matt hasn’t destroyed this, not yet, not entirely. Even though Foggy’s seen him, seen everything, he hasn’t run from the monster, and he doesn’t hate the Devil.

There’s a creak.

He freezes and carefully sets the glass on the table. (He’s not going to break two glasses this year.) He sinks into his guard.

Someone’s in his apartment.

“Hello, Matthew,” she says, her voice a familiar chorus.

* * *

Their battle begins again.

The opening jab: she apologizes for leaving him. “It wasn’t fate,” she says. “It was a choice. My choice.” 

Her heart is steady and fast. It always is, whether she’s telling the truth or lying. Not knowing is an intoxicating rarity.

The cross: she plays on his vulnerabilities. “I’m alone in the world, Matthew. Know what that feels like?” 

While he’s parrying, she delivers another punch:

“You’re the only person I can trust.”

He drops his guard. She always manages to bring down his guard. “Well, sweetheart, you don’t break into my home and then talk to me about trust,” he snarls.

The endearment tastes like poison.

She smiles triumphantly. She’s gotten through his defenses, won the battle. The sting of the final blow drives him forward. He has a reason to improve. An equal to sharpen his skills against. He can feel himself sizzling into focus.

A violinist practicing alone below quiets. The rasp of bow hairs against her rosin becomes a whisper. A nearby construction crew’s buzzing and hammering fades along with his headache.

It takes fifteen minutes after Elektra’s gone for him to hear them again.

God. Elektra. Elektra’s back, and he’s _missed_ it. Even years later.

He doesn’t know how to explain any of this to Foggy.

* * *

The next morning, the docket is bursting with happy clients and overpowering syrup smells. So many clients leave them baked goods. Unfortunately, baklava doesn’t keep the lights on, even if the office does save money on snacks.

They can make something work. They always do.

Except the something that works, in this case, is Elektra.

“Holy shit!” Foggy says. “That was the bank.”

She’s made a major deposit in their account.

“Yeah, uh, do me a favor,” he says nervously. “don't spend any of it.”

“Is it dirty money? Are we doing that again?” Foggy’s voice pitches up with hurt and suspicion. It’s an ideal opportunity for Matt to come clean, to explain. That the money’s from Elektra. That she wants something unknowable from him, more than she’s telling. That a poisoned part of him wants to do whatever she asks.

“No! No, it's nothing like that,” he says. “I was hit up by a potential client yesterday, I’m not sure it’s gonna work out. I’ll, I’ll get back to you.”

Elektra is a fight, and Foggy is too precious to introduce to his fists. 

* * *

She plans _everything._

His rooftop pursuit. His consuming questions about Roscoe Sweeney. How they lure him to her, to fight with her. Alongside her.

She shows him the Daredevil suit. She shows him her intimate, clever understanding of the parts he keeps hidden. She understands him inescapably.

“I want to know how you know about me,” he says. “I wear a mask.”

She laughs. “You can’t mask that ass. I’d know it anywhere.” As if that’s a real answer. As if Elektra would hand him the truth, knowing what being hungry for it does to him.

He’s pulled along her string of lies, as he always is.

Fighting the pull takes all his focus, his attention. The din of the world fades again. But by the end of their meeting, he’s lost another battle. He’s promised to go along with her heist if she leaves town afterwards.

He knows she won’t. He can never bear to let her leave. He can never be rid of her.

He rushes to Foggy and starts a bitter argument over the Punisher, so bitter that Karen closes the door on them. It’s fortifying to fight with him again. Elektra fights to win. Foggy’s not trying for defeat-- they’re both making arguments meant to convince. Arguments with premises, rebuttals, conclusions. They build on each other. They ground their actions in something real and shared.

“So we should risk everything-- our firm, our reputation, and let's be honest, our safety?” Foggy says. “We should put it all on the line to help him?”

“Kind of. Yeah,” Matt says.

Foggy’s heart slows in a way Matt recognizes. He’s going to say yes.

Yes to going to the hospital. Yes to fighting off the public defender and the DA’s office. Yes to risking the dream they’ve built together.

“Wait,” Matt says.

Yes to all that, because Foggy believes in his moral code. Because Foggy feels like his words are worth trusting. Foggy would save an irredeemable vigilante for him.

Foggy’s heart rate picks up. Matt’s sure that whatever’s written on his face is responsible. “What’s wrong, Matt?”

Foggy shouldn’t be involved in any of this. The sharpness of the fight, his cravings for Elektra’s manipulation, the glorious darkness she sees in him. The war between clarity and chaos.

> _I need to believe you’ll tell me if you’re in trouble._ Foggy says in his memory. He’s pretty sure this counts as being in trouble.

Even if Foggy hates him, even if he loses his last chance, Foggy is too precious to introduce to his fists.

> _You’re worth picking a fight for_ , he’d told Foggy.

Matt takes a breath. Another breath. Foggy’s heartbeat is so trusting, the sounds of the city are closing in, he has to make a _choice_. 

He focuses through the cacophony. 

* * *

Foggy’s angry. Of course he’s angry, Matt kept this from him. His heart’s beating so loud. The blood rushing through his arteries is drowning Matt.

“I don’t know what to be pissed about first,” Foggy said. “Elektra’s here? Elektra’s our client? Elektra knows about your fancy pajamas? How the hell does she know?”

“I didn’t tell her, Fogs,” he says. “I wouldn’t.”

She just sees through him, the way she always has. She’s always seen the Devil in him. “She said, to quote, ‘you can’t mask that ass.’ That she’d know it anywhere.” 

Maybe a little humor will stall the anger. The room is already starting to bleed at its edges.

It does startle a laugh out of Foggy. “She didn’t.”

“She did.” The air conditioner is whining loud and irritated. Dissonant against the thrumming of Foggy’s bloodstream. “As for the rest...”

He tells Foggy everything: the client money, the Roxxon Corporation meeting, the fight, the interrupted dinner and combative breakfast. Foggy touches his arm, and it burns like a brand. The pressure of all these truths is a storm cloud behind his eyes. The sharpness of Foggy’s anger is lightning. 

“I wanted to tell you. But I wanted to keep you away.” Matt is starting to gasp for air. Foggy’s heart races, anxiety and fear along with the anger. “It’s all right to be angry, Foggy,” he manages to get out, because that’s the important part here. Foggy has the right to what he needs.

Everything is blurring.

“Oh fuck. Fuck.” A splintering pencil. There’s horrified realization in Foggy’s voice. What Matt’s been expecting the whole time. “Listen to me.” Road noise, horns squawking, the flat mash of tires against asphalt. “Matt. _Matty._ ” Glass and metal crunching, a splash of oil and taste of gasoline. An accident.

“I’m listening--”

A pair of steady, burning arms tug him close to the familiar lines of Foggy’s chest. Hold him still, firmly, anchoring him. “Listen to my heart, Matt. Please.”

Matt tries. A bird flaps past the window, feathers hissing loud in the wind. He can tell Foggy’s heart is fluttering. The bird chirps. There’s overwhelming concern and residual anger and attraction and something Matt can’t identify.

“It’s not you I’m mad at,” Foggy says. The arms tighten. Not moving, not adding to the chaos.

Foggy’s heart is beating hard, but it’s beating truth.

_Truth._ It’s _true._

Matt breathes in, ragged. A garage door opens. Maxwell sings a lullaby tunelessly to his daughter. Her heart rate slows. He counts the beats. 116, 114, 110 per minute.

Foggy’s warm.

“Elektra put you through enough already,” he says softly. “I’m pissed at her for dragging you back. I don’t want her to _hurt_ you anymore, Matt.” He touches Matt’s hair. The movement of his hand burns less than before. More of an ache. He observes the feeling, quantifies the size of it. The shape. 

“I’m sorry I hurt you this time. You did the right thing, Matty. Exactly the right thing.” His voice sounds watery. “You came to me. I know it’s not easy.” 

He’s trembling like he’s seen a miracle. Matt will never understand why he's evoking this kind of response.

The edges of the room are stabilizing.

“Like I said, I wasn’t expecting perfection. A couple days of delay is _minutes_ for Matt Murdock.” Foggy’s voice is still choked, but affectionate. Warm. Something Matt doesn’t recognize.

“I’m so damn proud of you.”

* * *

They make a plan together to escape Elektra’s event horizon. A crash course, Foggy says-- but if he doesn’t get it the first time, if he gets sucked back in, that’s okay. They’ll get there.

The brainstorming is painful. Shame keeps clamping his mouth shut on stories of Elektra. The carpet of the floor digs unevenly through his shoes.

When they’re finished, Foggy taps his thigh thoughtfully. “So she makes you stupid. And you trust her.” Matt makes a sound of protest, and Foggy shakes his head. “She got under your skin, buddy. You don’t really change your mind about people.” He smiles, a little self-consciously.

Matt can’t really disagree.

“Since we know the problems, I’ve got a few ideas. Mind if I run them by you?”

Matt shakes his head, mutely, not trusting himself to speak.

“Great. First: what’s she making you stupid with? What’s motivating you to listen?” His hands are moving in an animated, entrancing way. “If it’s justice, helping the little guy, good. That’s a start. If you’re competing? Excited? Be careful. Sound good?”

It takes a moment to register that the last question is for him. “I’m not sure.” The idea of sorting through his tangle of motivations, the things Elektra brings out in him, is daunting.

“Yeah, that one’s gotta be tricky.” Foggy pats his arm. “Nothing that motivates you is simple. But the second should be easier.”

“Examine the quality of the evidence. Are there documents, witnesses? Don’t trust her hearsay,” he says. “That should be a solid rule. She’s not reliable, and you can’t lie detect on her. That one easier?”

He considers it. It’s adjacent to legal fact-finding, though he’s not an impartial third party. “Yeah.”

“Great! So, keeping it simple... Motivation. Reliability.” He scribbles them both onto the battered legal pad and underlines them three times. “Focus on those when she’s got you off-kilter. It’s not gonna be perfect, but it’s a start.”

Foggy’s head is tucked onto his shoulder, peering at the notebook. The scents and temperatures of their skin are mingling there, chaotic and wonderful. Matt fills his lungs and mind and senses with them until they’re the only thing in his world.

“Matt?” He jumps, guiltily. Foggy's heart rate is elevated. Matt shouldn’t have indulged. “Mind if we switch up our plans for TV day?” Foggy sounds hesitant, but still not angry. Matt’s shoulders untense, just a little. “There’s someplace I’ve been wanting to take you.”

* * *

It’s a comedy club, and it’s a gift.

The room is too hot, but between laughter it’s as quiet as a public place ever is. Just heartbeats, the mixed scents of alcohols and body odor, and the echoes of melting ice. It has _braille menus._

He’s never been to a non-chain restaurant with braille menus. He’s never even _heard_ of one.

It also has an ASL interpreter, whose hands move in shifting air currents at the corner of the stage. The owner’s husband is a disability rights advocate, Foggy says.

The opening acts are reasonable. The owner thinks he’s funnier than he is, but his set is brief, and the next comedian has some great jokes about public radio. The headliner’s voice is amazing; by turns melodic, nasal, squeaky. Her persona is similarly varied. One moment she’s dry, the next an outraged sorority girl.

The only thing that’s odd is Foggy. He laughs at all the right places, but between sets, during their conversations, his heart rate keeps changing. Fast and nervous; relaxed and happy. Something’s on his mind.

It’s dark when they emerge from under the club’s awning. The pavement has cooled; the streetlights hum amiably. He takes the crook of Foggy’s elbow as they begin their stroll back to Foggy’s apartment. 

Right now, Foggy’s heart is beating light and rapid. “What’d you think, buddy?” 

It was perfect. Somewhere he could enjoy himself without having to track what he should and shouldn’t know about his surroundings. Everything auditory or tactile, nothing overwhelming. Reading the menu without involving other people or screen readers, or choosing a restaurant expensive enough that he can run hands over the embossed letters.

“I think you spent a long time thinking about it,” he says honestly.

“I did.” Foggy’s shivering a little. “Found that place walking by, and it seemed like your scene. Then we had that rough patch.” Matt leans into him a little and smooths his palm all the way around Foggy’s elbow. Body warmth.

Foggy shivers again. His heart rate increases, this time in the way Matt’s shamefully fond of and provokes more often than a good man would. His temperature rises a few degrees.

He squeezes the arm reassuringly, and there’s another gratifying temperature spike. He fights down the urge to chase more. “It was superb,” he says. “Thanks, Fogs. For finding something so suited to me.”

No one’s made that kind of effort before.

“I’m glad you liked it.” His heartbeat decelerates, gradually, until it’s almost at the relaxed and happy pace. 

A puff of exhaust brushes past them as they walk. Foggy slows, then stops. “Hey, Matt?”

“Yeah?”

Foggy doesn’t respond, even though Matt can hear how much he wants to. His fingernails are digging warm crescents into his palms. His heart is beating faster and faster, building indecision and secrecy and fear. Matt’s nerves are lighting with alarm and anticipation. 

“That club. I planned to take you there on our first date,” Foggy confesses. “If we had one.”

Oh. 

Matt lets his arm drop from Foggy’s. No wonder Foggy’s heart has been beating such mixed emotions. He’s not sure how _he_ should feel. How he’s _supposed_ to feel. 

Or rather, he has part of the picture. Foggy put so much thought, consideration, and kindness into this day. That it was meant to be the start of something new between them, that Foggy had wanted to make this concrete gesture for Matt… he’s never felt more humbled. But he doesn’t know what the confession _means._ ‘Planned to take you,’ Foggy had said. _‘If_ we had one.’

He considers a few responses. ‘Did _we have one?_ ’ is blunt, too demanding. ‘ _It was an effective choice_ ’ too rawly hopeful. 

And Foggy’s not done speaking: his breathing is shallow, and he’s drumming at his leg as if concentrating fiercely. So he waits.

After what feels like an eternity, Foggy drops his shoulders. Uncurls his fingers. “I thought it might be time for one,” he says, stumblingly. Matt’s heart rate picks up in time with Foggy’s, because _oh._ “That’s why I invited you today. But I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure.” 

Matt waits in the heart-pounding silence, but Foggy seems to have run out of steam. He just stands there, sweat thick with tension and worry. 

So Matt moves closer. Rests an arm in the crook of his elbow, hoping the familiar gesture will calm him. “What's the verdict?” He pitches his voice gentle, coaxing. 

He doesn’t want to bias it. He’d never forgive himself. But he sends up a fervent prayer. 

Foggy turns square to face him. “I’d like,” he says, small and tender. His voice catches. With a careful slowness, he presses each finger of his hand to Matt’s waist, just above the hipbone. “I want it to be a date,” he says. He repeats the action with the other hand. “I’d like it to be ‘yet’ now.” 

He shifts forward, just an inch. Intimate. Unmistakable. His heart is beating faster than Matt’s ever heard it.

Matt feels like the world on fire has revealed itself to be the sun. 

When he doesn’t respond, the hands falter. “Is that okay?” There’s worry brightening his tone. He doesn’t mean just the touch.

It shakes him out of his daze. “It’s okay,” Matt breathes. “It’s _perfect_.” His arms find their trembling way over Foggy’s shoulders. He leans in forehead to forehead, desperate to drink in the mingling of their breath. “Can I?” Nudges his nose against Foggy’s. 

“Please,” Foggy says, sounding awkward and equally desperate. Matt has never heard a better invitation.

He brushes his mouth against Foggy’s, lightly, just for the gasp of want and surprise. Foggy’s lips, usually chapped, are soft with petroleum and vanilla. He’d prepared for this.

Matt captures the bottom lip between his own. Sucks it clean, eliciting another shuddering gasp. He wants Foggy to taste like Foggy, only like Foggy.

And then they’re kissing in earnest, lingering, open-mouthed kisses. Foggy’s hands weave around his lower back and tug him closer. Their whole bodies are points of heat and contact. Somewhere along the line, his hands have reburied themselves in Foggy’s hair.

It feels different. None of the angry, desperate need of miscommunication and hurt. Just an effervescent warmth through Matt’s body like champagne. A homecoming.

When they finally pull apart, there’s heated salt around Foggy’s eyes, and, Matt realizes, his own.

He traces the shell of Foggy’s ear with his thumb, his entire focus on the way Foggy leans into it, chasing more contact.

“What changed your mind?” He needs to know what he’s done right. What Foggy could possibly think he’s done to deserve another chance. He’ll do it every day.

“Yesterday afternoon.” Foggy presses his face into Matt’s hand. “You kept being honest even when you thought I hated you. When it didn’t gain you anything. You let me in when it was hard.” 

He doesn’t understand. “I told you I’d try to be honest,” Matt says. “I promised.”

“That was more than just trying, Matt.” He kisses Matt’s finger. His lips are just slightly warmer than they had been. Matt has brought the blood to the surface. “You’re so damn brave.” Pride and admiration stream through his voice. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Matt’s brave? Matt’s trusting? Foggy confessed to him in the taxi. Initiated this whole evening, even though he was unsure. Opened himself to Matt again and again where anyone else would have curled to protect their underbelly.

Foggy’s the brave one. Matt will never deserve him. 

Still, he wants to try. He can give Foggy something. Not much, too meager a gift to match what Foggy’s already given. But something.

He screws up his courage.

“Speaking of bravery,” He shakes his head violently. It’s too casual. “I never said, but I, I have the same…” He cuts himself off, swallows. He’s taking the coward’s way out, always making the second move. Echoing in Foggy’s footsteps. He doesn’t want to do that anymore. 

The streetlights hum their approval. “I love you, man,” he croaks.

Foggy’s heart makes a contented, surprised squeeze. There’s a brush of hair against his face. “You too, buddy.” A soft press of lips to his cheek, and Foggy nestles his head against his neck. “I really do.”

They take a long detour on the way back to Foggy’s apartment, a ten-block circuit in the wrong direction. He knows he should let Foggy get back to his apartment and sleep. Foggy’s considering inviting him up, he can tell, but it’s too soon after reconnecting. Matt’s just not willing to stop touching Foggy yet. Maybe not ever. 

They walk together, hand in hand, for what feels like hours. Hell’s Kitchen at night can be dangerous, but Matt will know if anyone’s coming. He’ll read their intentions. He’ll keep Foggy safe.

“Matt.” He startles as Foggy elbows him in the side. “Matty.”

He squeezes Foggy’s hand. “Yeah?”

Foggy squeezes back, then settles his hand into the curve of Matt’s lower back. When he finally speaks, there’s a smile in his voice. “She _really_ said ‘you can’t mask that ass?’ “

“She did.” 

He gives an undignified snort. A sputter. And then they’re giggling together, still leaning into each other, Foggy’s heart beating laughter and contentment and desire.

When they stop in front of his apartment building, Foggy’s eyeing him appraisingly. He flushes, warm and pleased.

“She’s not wrong,” Foggy says, “It’s _identifiable_. Adonis-like as advertised.” His tone is serious, but his lips are twitching. Matt nods. They maintain the stoic silence for only a few moments before Matt can’t hold in his laughter anymore. Foggy resists for ten more noble seconds. 

“I’m just saying,” Foggy says through the chuckles, “if you need to travel, I insist on taking that passport photo.” 

* * *

They watch Star Trek together the week after that, the week after that, and the week after that. No more desk chairs: they sit together on the couch, Matt’s head in Foggy’s lap. Occasionally, between descriptions, Foggy bends over to press kisses to his forehead.

Matt Murdock loves Star Trek. Not just because of the fun or the companionship. Some days, when he’s seen the very bottom of humanity, he has trouble imagining hope for the future. Star Trek is flawed, silly, and rooted in time, but it _dreams._ It sees a universe where no one is hungry, no one is poor. Where fights are rare, to be avoided and stopped at all costs. Where a mess of civilizations meets clear, noble, single-minded purpose. He wants to dream of that future.

Even if he’s not sure he could live in it, he wants to visit it with Foggy.

* * *

Their story ends in a car Matt could never afford.

Elektra thumbs through the pages of the ledger, bubbling with that bored, restrained excitement he used to live for. “If invoices for drugs and guns and human trafficking aren't encrypted, then what is? What are they hiding?”

She closes the book. “Same time tomorrow, Matthew?” She smirks.

It’s such a transparent manipulation. An effective one. There’s always a twist, with Elektra.

But he hasn’t checked off the list. 

Motivation he discards: too much to sift through. Reliability…

None. The ledger’s indents are deep enough to run his fingers over, but he doesn’t understand Japanese. He’s depending on her word as to its contents, why they retrieved it. The yakuza are circumstantial. He has only reasons not to trust this.

He still longs to follow the thread. The challenge makes the world alive and narrow, everything in righteous order. And he can choose it. Foggy will help him even if he throws himself in. He can rely on Foggy.

He can rely on Foggy.

Elektra suggests mysteries to leave him aching, anything to keep him on the line. Foggy narrates so that everything is clear, so Matt has everything.

And he does, now. He has everything he needs.

He takes a breath. Another. Opens the car door, gives Elektra his brightest, falsest, _sharpest_ smile, and says: 

“Some other time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It means a lot to me that you stuck with this love letter to messy feelings, sensory issues, Daredevil, and somehow also Star Trek: TNG. Thank you.
> 
> (Also, as far as I know the comedy club I wrote about is just fantasy, but for the curious, the headliner I was imagining is Liz Miele.)


End file.
